


I have loved you since we were eighteen

by lydiastilinskis



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Argent & Lydia Martin Friendship, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Banshee Lydia Martin, Endgame Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Eventual Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, F/M, FBI Agent Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin Loves Stiles Stilinski, Mentioned Allison Argent, Mutual Pining, RIP Allison Argent, Slow Burn Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Loves Lydia Martin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-03-23 20:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 55,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13795455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lydiastilinskis/pseuds/lydiastilinskis
Summary: "Stiles wasn’t even nervous to see Lydia Martin — he’d barely thought of her since graduation. Like, barely at all. Maybe once or twice. Or maybe ten. Yeah, sure, ten."A Beacon Hills High School reunion brings Lydia and Stiles face-to-face for the first time in ten years, where they attempt to repair the friendship that collapsed alongside Allison's untimely death in their junior year.





	1. Tie or No Tie?

**Author's Note:**

> Updated every Monday with a new chapter! Please leave Kudos/a comment if you enjoyed it! :)

Stiles Stilinski looked in the mirror and wondered if the tie — thin, black, and in his opinion very tasteful — was too much. He adjusted it and frowned, focusing in on his face in the reflection rather than his outfit.

 

He’d aged.

 

He was no longer eighteen years old, in his prime.

 

He wasn’t _old_ — at least, he insisted that twenty-eight wasn’t old, despite what the asshole kid who lived next door to him in his apartment block argued — but he definitely wasn’t eighteen anymore. The thought upset him, especially because he’d started _noticing_ that he wasn’t eighteen in his reflection.

 

At least male pattern baldness didn’t run in his family. His dad still had a head full of hair.

 

Perched just beside him on the corner of the desk in his old childhood bedroom, his phone began ringing. Stiles glanced at it, then grabbed it.

 

“Scott?”

 

“Hey,” Scott replied. “You called me? Like, fifty times.”

 

“It was _thirty_ ,” Stiles answered shortly, because he had been keeping track and becoming increasingly irritated that Scott wasn’t picking up. His voicemails, which had started off as light and breezy, had become progressively more irate. _Hey, Scott, wondering where you are. Call me back because I gotta talk to you!_ had soon progressed to: _Scott, where the hell are you? When I_ eventually _speak to you, I’m going to kick your ass for not calling me back. Call. Me. Back._

 

“Some of us have work, Stiles,” Scott reminded him.

 

“It’s six and the clinic shuts at five-thirty on Fridays,” Stiles said flatly. He’d driven past Scott’s veterinary clinic on his way to his dad’s house to double-check the time Scott finished work. He hadn’t realised he’d actually need to know that information, but he’d thought at the time it was better to be safe than sorry.

 

“You’re stalking me now?”

 

“Casual investigation,” Stiles replied breezily. “Besides, it came in handy, didn’t it? Where’ve you been for the past —” Stiles checked the time on his watch — “hour?”

 

“Just ... busy.”

 

“Busy?”

 

Scott cleared his throat. “Busy.”

 

A strange silence fell between them for a few seconds as Stiles wondered just what that meant. Scott _always_ told him where he was going, what he was doing, where he’d been — their friendship was exactly like that. They shared — sometimes too much. Oversharing was in their nature; they never … _didn’t_ share.

 

Stiles wasn’t sure what to do with this new equilibrium, where Scott was clearly hiding something from him.

 

“Oh- _kay_ ,” Stiles said finally, his tone strongly suggesting that he was absolutely Not Okay with Scott’s weird behaviour. “I wanted your opinion on something.”

 

“Sure.”

 

Scott seemed eager to help and Stiles suspected it was because he felt bad for keeping secrets and turning the conversation a little awkward. They prided their friendship on never suffering from awkwardness or even, really, silences. Stiles talked enough for the both of them most of the time.

 

Stiles took a deep breath, looking at his reflection again. “Tie, or no tie?”

 

Scott was quiet for a long time. Then, finally, “You’ve _got_ to be freaking kidding me, Stiles. You called me thirty times for this? To ask me if you should wear a tie or not?”

 

“I’m not saying that it’s your fault, Scott, but if you’d picked up the first time I called I wouldn’t have needed to call another twenty-nine times. And then this wouldn’t all seem kind of ridiculous.”

 

“You’re right,” Scott said, causing Stiles to smile with a delight that he was right, “this _is_ ridiculous.”

 

“Hey! Uncalled for.”

 

“No,” Scott replied, “no tie.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“I’m not wearing a tie.”

 

“You’re not?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Scott said. “The invite said it’s casual.”

 

“Smart-casual is not the same as casual, Scott.”

 

Scott was quiet. Then, “No tie.”

 

Stiles tugged the tie from around his neck and tossed it onto the floor of his bedroom. Well, it wasn’t strictly _his_ bedroom anymore. The bed he’d once slept in every night had been swapped out for a generic double bed with plain bedding; the desk that had once been cluttered with his class notes, his laptop, various stages of latest investigations, plus a small bobble head collection was now stark and empty; the room was empty, impersonal.

 

He wasn’t surprised. He’d moved out ten years ago now and didn’t even live in the state anymore, but it still hurt to know that his room didn’t look exactly as it used to when he’d lived in the house.

 

“Okay,” he said finally. “No tie.”

 

“Why are you dressed now, anyway? The reunion isn’t until tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah, but … I don’t know. It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, you know?” Stiles blundered his way through the excuse, his cheeks flaming red. He had a feeling Scott would see right through it, but hoped to God he wouldn’t.

 

Scott laughed and Stiles rolled his eyes in response.

 

“Being _prepared_ ,” Scott repeated, still sniggering on the other end of the line. “Right. You mean, being prepared to see Lydia Martin, right?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Stiles snapped, then added, “I’d totally forgotten about her anyway.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“I _had_.”

 

“Of course.”

 

“Stop saying that,” Stiles said, “you sound like an idiot.”

 

“Look, I’m outside your house,” Scott interrupted, not even bothering to respond to Stiles’s snappy and sulky comment. He was only sulking because he knew that Scott was right. “Let me in.”

 

“I’ll be down in a second. Hold on.”

 

Stiles hung up the phone and tossed it across the room onto the bed, staring at his reflection. He was planning on wearing one of his best plaid shirts — navy blue with lighter blue checks; so creative — with his cleanest pair of jeans, and he’d gotten a haircut last week to neaten up his usually unkempt hair. He unbuttoned the plaid shirt and grabbed a T-shirt, mostly to avoid being mocked by Scott, pulling it on over his head as he left the room.

 

Scott stood waiting by the front door, waving in through the window of glass, as Stiles opened the door and stepped aside to let him in.

 

“Finally,” he grunted.

 

“Stop complaining,” Scott reprimanded him, raising an eyebrow. He still had that alpha power over him, the control that made Stiles want to fall in line for some reason. But he was still pissed at Scott for ignoring all of his calls and then lying about it.

 

“I needed you, man.”

 

“You needed fashion advice,” Scott responded, rolling his eyes. The two men looked at each for a few seconds, before Stiles reluctantly pulled Scott in for a hug, slapping each other on the backs for the sake of their masculinity before squeezing each other. They hadn’t seen each other in a few months, and even though they talked everyday, it was still better seeing each other face-to-face.

 

“So, the big ten years,” Scott said.

 

He followed Stiles through to the kitchen, where Stiles grabbed two beers from the fridge and handed one over to Scott. Even though they were twenty-eight now, Stiles still felt strangely like a teenager sneaking alcohol for a party.

 

“Can you believe all the people we’ll see?” Stiles mused. He passed his own beer to Scott, who could snap the cap off with his bare hands. Stiles could have used a bottle-opener, or probably taken five minutes to open it himself, but why use his own hands when he could use his werewolf best friend’s claws?

 

“You mean like Lydia?”

 

“Jackson, Ethan, Danny —”

 

“Lydia …”

 

“— Malia, Kira,” Stiles finished, glaring at Scott. “You know, our _friends_.”

 

“Lydia was our friend too.”

 

“For a while,” Stiles replied, shrugging, “but then, you know.”

 

“Lydia was more our friend than _Jackson_ was — you hated that guy!” Scott reminded him.

 

“Yeah, and if I see him tomorrow night I will be avoiding him completely,” Stiles answered, “but I just don’t think of Lydia as one of our friends. I’m sorry, Scott, and I feel bad for her with everything she went through with Allison — but she wasn’t part of the gang.”

 

“And Ethan was?”

 

“We’re going to see everyone, okay?” Stiles sighed. “Good or bad. Friends or not. Yes, Lydia will be there too. I didn’t want to bring her up in case you thought it was because …”

 

“Of the gigantic thing you had for her throughout most of middle school and high school?”

 

“You know,” Stiles shrugged as casually as he could, “something like that.”

 

“Totally fooled me.”

 

Stiles wished that Scott would stop grinning and laughing at him. Stiles wasn’t even nervous to see Lydia Martin — he’d barely thought of her since graduation. Like, barely at all. Maybe once or twice. Or maybe ten. Yeah, sure, ten. Every year since their first — and only — kiss in the girls’ locker room of Beacon Hills High School. On the anniversary of that kiss — he knew the date by heart, obviously: September 14 — he thought about her and the way she’d taken his face in her hands and kissed him.

 

But he only ever thought about it because she’d been calming him down. And it reminded him of the sacrifices, the Darach, his _dad_. He thought about that kiss annually because it reminded him of how important family was. Not how kissable Lydia Martin’s lips were and how he’d smelled just like her perfume for the rest of that glorious, surreal day.

 

“That crush is long gone,” Stiles said. “I don’t even think about her anymore.”

 

“Then why is your heart beating so fast?”

 

“That is _not_ fair,” Stiles told him, rolling his eyes. “You promised me that you would stop doing that and only use your little werewolf senses for good. Not _evil_.”

 

“Hardly counts as evil,” Scott said. He leaned against the kitchen counter. “Ten years. Feels like less time. Feels like I’m not where I wanted to be.”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles agreed, “we were just kids with hopes and dreams. Oh, how the real world crushed those dreams and spat us out.”

 

“Stiles.”

 

“I’m kidding!”

 

“You work at the freaking FBI, Stiles,” Scott said. “Your dreams _literally_ came true.”

 

“Well, _you_ have your own veterinary clinic here,” Stiles told him. “Doesn’t sound much more like living your dream than that.”

 

Scott smiled at Stiles. With Stiles living in Washington D.C., it was strange seeing each other standing in Sheriff Stilinski’s kitchen — Stiles’s childhood home — almost like nothing had changed and no time had passed. Scott had to remind himself that Stiles was working at the FBI as an agent and he was a vet. He had his own business now. They weren’t kids anymore. No matter how nostalgic it felt.

 

“Yeah, we’ve kind of made it out okay, haven’t we?” Scott replied thoughtfully. Then, “Hey, I heard that Lydia is some kind of mega mathematician now.”

 

Stiles dropped his gaze from Scott, taking a conveniently timed sip of his beer.

 

“Let me guess,” Scott replied dryly, raising one eyebrow at Stiles. “You already knew that.”

 

“She was always destined for that kind of greatness.”

 

“Stiles.”

 

“It was a hunch?”

 

“ _Stiles_.”

 

“I Googled her,” Stiles admitted miserably. “I just—”

 

“Didn’t want me to think that you’re still hung up on her? Even though it’s been ten years since that kiss.”

 

“It was _eleven_ years ago, and it meant nothing.”

 

“You don’t believe that,” Scott said, frowning. “That kiss shaped our junior year. You couldn’t stop grinning for weeks.”

 

“She kissed me in a moment — it was a _moment_ — and she was trying to comfort me over my dad,” Stiles told him. “There was nothing else to it. But yeah, you know what? It worked. It made me feel better. After, you know, almost losing my dad, and at an all-round stressful time in my life, it _was_ all I thought about for weeks.”

 

It was the same speech he’d given to himself many, _many_ times before when he’d tried convincing himself that the kiss wasn’t important. It didn’t matter. It hadn’t mattered to Lydia — who’d never mentioned it again and instead grew increasingly distant from him, until they barely even spoke and eventually stopped speaking altogether — and so it didn’t matter to him. _Ugh._ He hated that he had to convince himself. It had happened in junior year, for God’s sake.

 

Time. To. Get. Over. It.

 

“I don’t need reminding,” Scott said, “you told me at least twenty thousand times in the week it happened.”

 

“I had a crush on her since third _freaking_ grade, okay? The girl had just kissed me. _Lydia Martin_ had just kissed me! I wasn’t going to keep that quiet, Scott, come on. It was an important milestone in my life.”

 

“And clearly still is.”

 

“And being back here for this reunion has brought it back to my memory,” Stiles said, “that’s all. I don’t think about her. Ever.”

 

“Sure. But you Google her.”

 

“Once — I Googled her _once._ I also Googled Jackson.”

 

“Why?”

 

“I was hoping that he’d lost all of his hair and had a dead-end job somewhere,” Stiles mumbled, then added, “He’s an Armani model. In case you wanted to know.”

 

“I’m sure he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen tomorrow.”

 

Stiles raised an eyebrow in agreement, thinking about how much he was dreading his first encounter with Jack-ass Whittemore at the reunion. The last time he’d seen him, Lydia had been clutched in his arms and Stiles had embarrassingly felt a tear sliding down his cheek. After Jackson left town — and deserted Lydia in the process; _asshole_ — Stiles felt like a small window had opened. Jackson had always been so dominant and possessive over Lydia, with him gone Stiles finally felt like he could talk to her without Lydia constantly being aware of Jackson. And it had worked for a little while.

 

The year they’d been friends had been Stiles’s favourite year of high school. And that was purely because he’d known just how much he needed to appreciate it for his eight-year-old self, who would have been elated that Lydia even _noticed_ him.

 

“So, Lydia’s some famous mathematician, huh?” Stiles said, thinking about the strawberry-blonde haired girl who’d completely dominated his high school career. He’d spent most of his classes stealing glances at her and trying to work up the courage to speak to her. Now that he’d allowed himself to think about her, she was all he could think about. She was like a drug.

 

“As famous as a mathematician can be. Apparently, she discovered some hypothesis that nobody had ever thought of and it was pretty much genius.”

 

“Did it win her a Field’s medal?”

 

“What?”

 

Stiles shook his head, smiling to himself. “Doesn’t matter.”

 

“Are you nervous about seeing her?”

 

Stiles shook his head again, willing his heartbeat to slow down and stop giving himself away. Thankfully, Scott had the grace not to say anything.

 

“She might not even be there, man. She’s living in New York, got this whole big thing going for her. It’s one night back in Beacon Hills. Why would she travel all that way just for one night?”

 

“You’re staying longer,” Scott pointed out. “Maybe she will, too. Her mom still lives here.”

 

“I just can’t imagine her sticking around,” Stiles said, who had read in the article on Lydia a few months earlier that she liked to travel to exotic places. Her last vacation had been to Fiji for three weeks. He doubted she’d be interested in coming back to Beacon Hills, even if her mom was still in town. Stiles was only staying longer because the reunion was this weekend, then it was the nineteenth anniversary of his mother’s death the week after. He’d promised he would stay for it. He knew his dad still struggled with that day and they always spent it together.

 

“Maybe she’s changed.”

 

Stiles thought about Lydia: always in total control, ambitious, intelligent, goal-oriented, funny — did people know that she was funny? He suspected not, but she _was_  — and so much more. Why would she need to change? She’d changed for the better after Jackson left town. Becoming friends with Allison had been good for her. Being introduced to the supernatural and becoming a banshee _had_ changed her, making her even more ambitious and less afraid to show it.

 

She’d left town after graduation, attended MIT (he’d seen it on Facebook) and had probably never looked back. Unlike Stiles, who’d attended George Washington and stayed in D.C., but kept looking over his shoulder at Beacon Hills and the life he’d had there.

 

“Nah,” Stiles disagreed, finishing his beer. “You want another one?”

 

“I’m good. Won’t get me drunk anyway.”

 

“Right,” Stiles often forgot that. “So, what were you doing earlier? When you weren’t answering my calls.”

 

“I told you, I was busy.”

 

“Doing _what_ , Scott?”

 

“Stiles, I don’t have to tell you everything.”

 

“But we do anyway.”

 

Scott rolled his eyes. “Just being busy.”

 

“Were you with someone? Were you on a date?” Stiles asked. “I’m an FBI agent, Scott, I interrogate people for a living. I could do this _all_ day.”

 

“Well,” Scott shrugged, “it’s too bad you can’t.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“There’s someone at the door.”

 

Stiles glanced in the direction of the hallway. He’d heard nothing. “How do you —?” The doorbell rang loudly, echoing through the house. Scott tapped his ears knowingly; his very own version of Spidey sense.

 

“This conversation isn’t over,” Stiles told Scott, before he walked through to the hallway to open the door. He had no idea who it could be — it was almost eight o’clock and he wasn’t expecting anyone.

 

He opened the door, revealing four people standing on his father’s porch: Danny, Greenberg (he’d forgotten about Greenberg; how could he forget about _Greenberg_?), Liam and Mason. They were each holding a couple of beers in their hands, and Danny produced a large bottle of vodka from behind his back. Liam grinned, then grabbed something from beside the front door. A giant keg. _Great_.

 

“Happy ten-years!” Danny yelled. The four guys burst into the house, knocking Stiles aside. He glanced over them all at Scott, raising one eyebrow.

 

“What the hell are you guys doing here?”

 

“We heard the Sheriff’s on duty tonight and you’ve got a free house — everyone’s in town for the reunion, so we thought that we would take that as an invite for a party,” Mason explained with a grin.

 

“You guys didn’t even graduate ten years ago,” Stiles said, “it isn’t _your_ reunion tomorrow.”

 

“No, but we hung out with you guys enough that we consider ourselves, like, honorary members of the class of 2013.”

 

“That is not true,” Stiles said. “Liam. Do not turn those speakers on. Do not. Do not —” The sound of music filled the house and Liam grimaced, turning to look at Stiles. Stiles glared back. “You turned those speakers on. I _asked_ you not to.”

 

“It’s a party, Stiles. We need music.”

 

“It is _not_ a party!”

 

“When did you become boring, Stilinski?” Danny jeered.

 

“There are literally six people here, it’s called being realistic,” Stiles pointed out, gesturing around the room manically. The four uninvited guests stood in the living room, while Scott and Stiles stood near the front door.

 

As soon as the words left Stiles’s mouth, he regretted them. Liam’s face lit up, apparently having _known_ Stiles would say that, and pointed past them to the door. Stiles squinted into the darkness of the outside, where he could just about make out several more people walking up the pathway and a couple of groups further back too, all making their way towards the house.

 

“Liam,” Stiles growled, “you are _so_ dead.”


	2. The Familiar House on Sycamore Avenue

While Stiles and Scott threw a party about fifteen hundred miles away, Lydia Martin unknowingly clicked her seatbelt back into place and crossed one leg over the other, shifting with discomfort. She’d paid for extra legroom, but didn’t appear to have been given any.

 

The person beside her on the cramped plane spread his legs underneath the seat in front of him, closing his eyes and letting out a long sigh.

 

Lydia watched him for a few seconds, wondering where he was going — well, California, she knew _that_ — and why. Was he visiting someone? Or was he from California? Was he going on vacation or going home? Was it for work or pleasure?

 

He opened one eye, glancing at her, and she pretended she hadn’t been looking. She rummaged in her purse for her phone, checking her last texts from her mom. Natalie had text her when she’d left her apartment in New York, letting her know what time she’d be at the airport to pick her up.

 

They were halfway through a six-hour flight; usually she was prepared for a flight, armed with books, downloaded movies and a billion things to organise in the duration, but this time she had nothing to do.

 

She’d been in such a rush to leave that she hadn’t even _thought_ about downloading any movies. Her planner was tucked away in her main bag in the underbelly of the plane, and she tapped her fingers against her leg for a distraction from her thoughts.

 

She hadn’t even wanted to go to the ten-year reunion. She’d received the e-invite months ago and immediately rolled her eyes at the thought of going. She hadn’t deleted the invitation; she’d just forgotten all about it. She’d been so set on not going that it hadn’t even needed debating. She just wasn’t going.

 

But then Mickey — her boss — told her to go home, take some time off work and not come back until things were better. She knew _exactly_ what he’d meant by that.

 

 _Go home and don’t come back until this whole … situation has resolved itself_.

 

Maybe he had a point, but she resented the fact that she’d basically been forced into taking time off work when that was the _last_ thing she needed. She didn’t think it was entirely fair; she was going through a lot, and the “situation” (as people kept referring to it) wasn’t _her_ fault. Besides, she should _be_ there. At work. She should be working. When Mickey had told her to go home, he didn’t mean her New York apartment. He meant _home_ home. Beacon Hills.

 

She’d called her mom, expecting — hoping — that Natalie would say she was busy, that it was the wrong time for Lydia to come home for as long as she “needed” to, but Natalie sounded delighted that Lydia was coming back to Beacon Hills. So, she’d booked a flight — and then realised that the flight coincided with the ten-year reunion.

 

Fate?

 

She didn’t believe in fate. She was a mathematician, after all.

 

Coincidence?

 

Probably.

 

The man in the seat beside her opened his eyes, leaning forward and rummaging through his bag to find a bottle of water. He lifted it up, uncapped it, and took a giant gulp from it.

 

Lydia jiggled her leg for a few seconds, before turning to him. “Why are you going to California?”

 

The man looked at her, his eyes widening. He swallowed and pulled the bottle of water away from his mouth, slowly placing the cap back on and twisting it.

 

“My ex-wife lives there,” he told her. “I’m going to see my kids.”

 

“Whereabouts do they live?”

 

“A little out of Los Angeles.”

 

“I live in Beacon County,” Lydia explained, though he hadn’t asked. “I’m going home for a few weeks.”

 

“Any reason why?”

 

“It’s my class’s ten-year reunion,” she told him, frowning. It seemed like the easiest explanation. In fact, it was a decent cover story. She’d come back for the reunion — and she thought she might stay for a short while after. Because she missed her mom. Not because she’d been sent home from work and basically told not to come back until things stopped being so … crazy.

 

“Oh,” the man answered, nodding. “Are you looking forward to it? Must be weird, seeing your classmates again after all these years.”

 

She thought of the one classmate — the most important classmate — who wouldn’t be there. Who _should_ have been there. Who should have graduated, but never did.

 

She thought of all the people she’d see instead of Allison: Jackson (apparently, he was a model now for Armani and thought even more of himself than he had in high school, which she had to give him some credit for because she hadn’t thought that was possible); Ethan; Scott, of course; Stiles. Also of course. Because if Scott was going — and she knew he was — then Stiles would be there. They were still a package deal, even now.

 

She hadn’t spoken to Stiles since their junior year. She vaguely knew what he was doing — an FBI agent in D.C., which made sense considering her memories of him and how he had enjoyed the supernatural mysteries and solving crimes that the Sheriff’s station couldn’t figure out — but she didn’t know much else about him.

 

She knew that he’d had a ridiculous crush on her for years, which had only grown as their friendship had grown in their junior year. But then … after everything that happened with Allison, with _everything_ that happened in their junior year, she just couldn’t get involved with someone. _Especially_ not with someone like Stiles — someone who genuinely cared about her.

 

She’d pushed him away, telling herself that it was for the best. And, if she was being honest with herself, she didn’t regret that decision. Stiles and Scott were dealing with their own grief over Allison and it didn’t seem fair to load her grief onto them too, especially because they hadn’t been hanging out _that_ long before Allison died.

 

She didn’t think that one friendship group could cope with that much death and grief. She’d gone back to hanging out with the people she’d been friends with before Allison, all the time stealing glances at Scott and Stiles’s table and wondering what they were talking about, hunched over their table. She suspected that it was usually some kind of supernatural-related occurrence, but could never bring herself to ask.

 

Kira — Scott’s girlfriend at the time — sat with them at that point, and then another girl had joined their table and sat next to Stiles. After a few weeks, Lydia found out three things about the new girl who had joined their table: her name was Malia, she was extraordinarily bad at math, and she was Stiles’s girlfriend.

 

She didn’t know what had happened to Stiles and Malia. She thought they broke up in their senior year, but nobody quite knew why. Malia started dating a couple of guys from the lacrosse team and Stiles didn’t appear to date anyone else.

 

Lydia didn’t mind that she wasn’t friends with them. By their senior year, it was almost like that year they’d been friends — _good_ friends — hadn’t even happened. They didn’t even acknowledge each other in the hallway. The more she put the past behind her, the better she felt about it. The less she thought about Stiles and Scott, the less she thought about Allison. And she felt better about that, too. It wasn’t the healthiest way to deal with the death of her best friend, but it was Lydia’s way.

 

As the man sitting beside her cleared his throat, Lydia realised she’d spent the past ten minutes thinking about the past and hadn’t answered him.

 

“Right,” she replied, desperately trying to remember what he’d even said to her. “Yeah.”

 

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

 

“No,” She shook her head. “Just thinking about one.”

 

She hadn’t thought about Stiles Stilinski in forever. She thought about their kiss — oh, she thought about the kiss — and what it had meant to her, but she hadn’t actually thought about _him._ She hadn’t thought about her friendship with him. She hadn’t thought about how he’d been the only person in Beacon Hills — possibly in the world — who had believed that she wasn’t crazy.

 

Stiles Stilinski had saved her life just by being her friend.

 

Lydia settled back into her seat, closing her eyes, allowing herself to think about — to _remember_ — Stiles for the first time in years. She was almost looking forward to the reunion now.

 

Almost.

 

____________________________________________

 

 

The plane jolting to the ground lurched her from a fitful, uncomfortable sleep.

 

The man next to her noticed she’d woken up and smiled. “We’ve just landed.”

 

She looked out of the window as the plane began slowing down on the runway, applying pressure on the brakes to bring them up to a stop.

 

“Great,” she said, feeling discombobulated as she glanced up at the darkening sky.

 

Twenty minutes later, they were off the plane. She awkwardly smiled at the man who’d been sitting beside her, and he gave her a nod in return. The kind of strange relationship that people formed on a flight: she’d been sitting next to him for six hours, had talked to him about her reunion and he’d talked about his kids, and now they’d never see each other again. She wanted to wish him luck for seeing his children and his ex-wife, but she had no idea if he _needed_ good luck. Maybe his relationship was his ex-wife was great. The man hurried off — clearly in a rush — before she got the chance to say anything.

 

Lydia ambled through to baggage reclaim and through to security. By the time she got through, it had almost been an hour since they’d landed. The process was so long and she was relieved when she finally got through all the security to check her phone.

 

Her stomach dropped when she saw a message from her mom: _Hi, honey! So sorry, I can’t pick you up from the airport after all. Something’s come up with Eric. I’ll pay for a cab! Love you._

 

Lydia’s shoulders dropped but she put one foot in front of the other until she arrived at the cab line. Eric was her mom’s new boyfriend and he always seemed to be going through something that required her mom’s attention,  _just_ when Lydia needed it the most.

 

She was too tired to complain. She got into the next available cab and asked the driver to take her to Beacon Hills. She said she’d give more specific instructions once they got closer; it was a long drive and she was exhausted from travelling. She sat back in the car, letting the jolting and the soft music in the cab send her into a light sleep.

 

She woke up forty minutes later, closer to Beacon Hills than she thought. It was almost 10 p.m. now; she supposed traffic wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

 

They were driving down Sycamore Avenue; she knew the street well: Stiles used to live on Sycamore Avenue. In fact, she knew exactly whereabouts they were on Sycamore Avenue. His house would be coming up in three, two …

 

“Stop the car,” she instructed her cab driver, sounding like a character from a movie in a dramatic police chase. The cab driver glanced at her in the mirror, raising an eyebrow, but she looked out of the window, ignoring him.

 

It was a party.

 

They were twenty-eight years old and they were having a … a _house party_. Back in high school, she would have been a little disgusted by the immaturity, but now she was just intrigued. She wondered who’d been invited — was it the kind of party that you needed an invite to? She remembered ragers from high school — she’d thrown most of them, obviously — and people just showed up. Were they throwing a high school party?

 

A couple of people staggered out from the house, their arms looped around each other, and one of them leaned over to throw up in the shrubbery beside the front door. It definitely didn’t look like a sophisticated, adults’ party.

 

Curiosity overcame Lydia.

 

She wanted to do something _fun._ When was the last time she’d done something fun? Something that didn’t benefit her, but was just ... fun? She leaned forward, grabbing a handful of cash from her purse, and shoved it through the partition at the driver.

 

“Thanks, you can just drop me here,” she told him. “Keep the change.”

 

“Uh … you’ve given me way too much here, miss.”

 

“I said keep it,” she insisted, opening the door and sliding off the seat.

 

She grabbed her bags and nudged the cab door shut with her hip. The cab driver clearly didn’t feel too bad about accepting the overpayment because he drove away shortly after, leaving her standing on the side walk and looking at the house in front of her. She could hear the pounding bass from inside the house, and voices shouting above the music.

 

The front door opened and she stepped forwards, trying to get her bearings. She _should_ know the person stepping over the two people vomiting in the shrubbery, and she strained to recognise them.

 

And then, just like that, she did.

 

“Scott?” she asked loudly, taking another few steps forward. “Scott McCall?”

 

The guy — who was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and a dark jean jacket — looked welcomingly familiar. She was grateful to see that Scott hadn’t changed much and that she’d recognised him so easily. She drank in the sight of him, of the handsome boy — _man_ , now — she would always think of as Allison’s boyfriend.

 

“Scott!”

 

“Lydia?” Scott asked.

 

He walked forwards, stepping into the light a little more. She could see, despite the shadows on his face, that he did look older. His hair was a little bit longer, a little messier, but he was still Scott. She felt warmth flood through her; she figured it was something to do with Scott being an alpha and being the leader of the pack she’d wished she could be in, or maybe it was just because he was  _Scott_. He was familiar and would, Lydia knew without a doubt, be kind to her.

 

“Yeah,” she answered, smiling at him. “It’s me.”

 

“Wow, I haven’t seen you in—”

 

“Ten years,” she interrupted softly. “Hence the reunion.”

 

“Hence the reunion,” he repeated, nodding. His eyes flickered down to her bags. “You, uh, just got in?”

 

“It’s the weirdest thing,” she explained. “The cab took me this way. I’d never go this way to get to my mom’s house, but he took me this way. When I realised where I was—”

 

“When you realised where you were?” Scott interjected, frowning.

 

“The street.”

 

“You know the street?”

 

She realised belatedly that she’d given herself away. Sure, she’d been to Stiles’s house with Scott and Allison a few times, and again a few times just by herself, but was it weird that she remembered where it was? Did that mean that it was somehow important to her? She also knew there was no point in lying to Scott; he’d know immediately.

 

He’d be able to tell by her heartbeat.

 

“Stiles’s house,” she said smoothly, pointing up at the house. “I’ve been here before.”

 

“Right,” Scott answered.

 

“Anyway,” She was eager to continue and try to forget that. “So, we came this way. I recognised the street and then realised that all the noise and partying was coming from the Sheriff’s house. We stopped. I got out.”

 

“So I can see,” Scott replied. “You want to come in? Stiles should be inside somewhere.”

 

Well, she’d got out of the cab. She couldn’t exactly tell him she wasn’t planning on staying. 

 

She nodded. “Sure.”

 

Scott automatically reached for one of her bags, slinging it effortlessly over one shoulder. “How long are you staying for? Just the weekend?”

 

She thought of her boss’s advice. _Stay until things are better_. She didn’t know how long that would be, exactly — how long until you recovered from a broken heart? And from the entire mess it had created? Was there a time limit to that? She could stay home for six months and she didn’t think things would be _better._ Did Mickey genuinely expect her to stay home until that was the case, or did he think that a week — maybe two, if he was feeling generous — would be plenty?

 

“Undetermined,” she told Scott, again with the heartbeat thing.

 

“Helping out with your mom?”

 

“Something like that,” Lydia replied, willing her heartbeat to continue at a regular pace. The two of them started walking up the pathway into the house.

 

Lydia gingerly stepped over the vomiting people, throwing them a disgusted look. Were they serious? They were almost thirty and it wasn’t even 10 p.m.

 

“What about you?” Lydia asked, desperate to move the conversation on from herself. “What are you up to now, Scott?”

 

“I’m a vet,” he told her, beaming with pride. She _felt_ his pride in his job. “I have a clinic downtown.”

 

“That’s great.”

 

“And you’re some whiz mathematician, right?” he asked.

 

She laughed, shrugging. “Something like that. How did you know about that?”

 

Scott seemed to consider that, then, eventually, “I Googled you.”

 

“Oh,” she replied, not knowing what to say to that. “Wow.”

 

He didn’t say anything else. He seemed to be muttering something to himself and she didn’t ask what. By the time they reached the house, it was impossible to hear anyway. The music only got louder as Scott pushed open the door to the Stilinskis’ house and beckoned her inside. He directed her to a smaller room off the living room, which looked suspiciously like an office that a Sheriff of a town might have, and tucked her bag behind the door.

 

“It’ll be safe here,” he promised. “I’ll keep an eye on it.”

 

“You’re not drinking?”

 

Scott smiled. “Can’t get drunk. Alcohol doesn’t affect me, remember?”

 

Being away from Beacon Hills meant that she’d forgotten some of the supernatural rules, including that werewolves couldn’t get drunk.

 

She nodded, dropping her smaller bag onto the floor beside the one Scott had carried in. After they’d successfully tucked the bags away, he led her through to the kitchen to get a drink.

 

“We have beer,” he said, “or more beer, or vodka.”

 

“So much variety.”

 

“Unfortunately, Liam was in charge of the keg,” Scott explained, “and it was kind of an impromptu thing.”

 

“As in …?”

 

“As in they showed up two hours ago with the keg and some speakers,” Scott said, handing her a red solo cup filled with warm, probably flat beer. Lydia couldn’t think how she’d even stomached the _thought_ of drinking this in high school.

 

“I know,” Scott agreed with her grimace. “It tastes just as disgusting as it looks. If not worse.”

 

She took a sip, swallowing. “Lovely.”

 

Scott laughed. “So, you want me to try and find Stiles for you? I’m sure he’s around here somewhere.”

 

Lydia suddenly felt … _nervous_ about seeing Stiles Stilinski. Scott, she could deal with. Scott McCall was _Scott McCall_. Everyone’s best friend. His job was to make people feel at ease, safe, protected. She could cope with Scott, despite the crushing weight of her best friend’s premature death resting on her shoulders, she could cope with seeing him and speaking to him.

 

But Stiles?

 

How could she explain the thoughts whirling around her head? Their relationship was difficult, complex. She hadn’t talked to him since they were juniors, she’d actively avoided him after the end of their junior year. She’d ignored his attempts to speak to her in the hallway — claiming that she had somewhere important to be and couldn’t be late. She’d purposefully sat somewhere other than at their table at lunch, pretending she hadn’t seen him waving in her direction.

 

By the time senior year rolled around, Stiles had stopped trying, but he’d never been rude to her.

 

That was almost what made it hurt the most. Stiles had never been cruel to her for ignoring them or never speaking to them again, and the guilt only increased. However, the guilt she felt at abandoning those boys just about balanced out with the guilt she felt for not being there to save Allison, for not anticipating her death and stopping it, and whenever she saw Stiles glance her away in class, she reminded herself of that.

 

She was doing it for Allison. And she was doing it for them, too. Allison’s death was on _her._

 

It wasn’t fair to continue being friends with them — especially because they’d only been friends in the first place _because_ of Allison — while she was grieving so much. She’d seen Scott in the hallways after Allison’s death: he pretended he was okay, but she could practically _feel_ the sorrow coming off him like a siren call.

 

“It’s fine,” she said eventually, “I’ll catch up with him later.”

 

“Sure,” Scott replied. He seemed to be conflicted with something, lifting his cup of warm beer to take a sip, before changing his mind. He opened his mouth to say something, then frowned.

 

Eventually, Lydia grew tired of it. Maybe she was only a shell of the person she used to be, but dithering still pissed her off.

 

“Why is your face like that?” she asked him.

 

He looked at her. “No reason.”

 

“Scott, maybe you can hear my heartbeat if I’m lying, but I can see plainly by your face that _you_ are. Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“Stiles has been looking forward to this reunion,” Scott told her finally, his shoulders slumping.

 

“Oh,” she replied. “That’s it?”

 

“Well,” Scott winced. Then, “Yep. That’s it.”

 

“Why?” Lydia frowned at Scott, shaking her head just slightly.

 

She wasn’t sure what Scott was implying — or whether he really was just stating mundane facts about Stiles — until Scott’s eyes flicked behind her, just as someone entered the kitchen. Lydia’s heartbeat quickened, wondering if it was Stiles, and she turned around slowly and purposefully …

 

And came face-to-face with Malia Tate.

 

Stiles’s ex-girlfriend.

 

Then, it hit her.

 

Stiles was clearly so excited about the reunion because it meant he got to see _Malia_ again. After all, they’d dated for quite a few months and Lydia saw the way Malia used to look at Stiles. Maybe Stiles was hoping that the reunion would bring them back together and rekindle what they’d once had, before they’d broken up for whatever reason.

 

“Malia,” Scott said, breaking into her thoughts. “You remember Lydia, right?”

 

Malia’s gaze fixed on Lydia, her eyes narrowing just slightly. She was wearing a plaid shirt with denim shorts, very much a staple Malia outfit. Lydia found it somewhat comforting that Malia’s style choices were consistent — it meant that not as much time had passed as it felt like.

 

“The banshee?” Malia asked, still looking right at Lydia. Lydia couldn’t tell if _she_ was supposed to answer the question, or if it was directed at Scott. Scott was, after all, Malia’s alpha.

 

“Yes, the banshee,” Lydia answered tersely, narrowing her eyes defensively. “But I just go by Lydia these days.”

 

Malia stuck out her hand. “Malia Tate.”

 

They shook hands formally. “Lydia Martin.”

 

Lydia didn’t admit that she knew exactly who was Malia was and had since the moment Malia had sat down at Scott and Stiles’s table. She’d even Googled her. That was too embarrassing to admit to _anybody._

 

“You remember each other from school, right?” Scott asked, apparently trying to create conversation between them. What, exactly, was he going to say? _Malia, you dated Stiles and Lydia, you … had something with Stiles? Have fun talking about that!_

 

“A little,” Lydia said.

 

“Malia is Peter’s daughter,” Scott explained to Lydia. “And Lydia was … Allison’s best friend.”

 

There it was. Like a punch to the gut.

 

Malia tilted her head like she was looking at Lydia in a whole new light — the left-behind best friend — and Lydia felt her skin grow hot.

 

“Excuse me,” she said, “I need some air. It’s hot in here.”

 

“Do you want me to come with you?” Scott offered.

 

“No,” she answered quickly, then winced at the hurt expression on his face. She tried to remind herself that Scott only ever tried to help. He wasn’t trying to upset her. “No, thanks. I’ll be fine.”

 

She excused herself, tucking her hair behind her ear as she left the kitchen and walked through the house to the front door as fast as she could. A bench sat on the front porch, a little unloved but still in one piece, and she sat down on it. It took her a few minutes to slow her breathing and stop thinking about Allison. She hadn’t expected Scott to mention her — it had just taken her by surprise.

 

He talked about her casually. He could _say her name_. It had been ten years. Why wasn’t she okay about everything? Why did coming back here cause her to feel so weird and uncomfortable? It was one of the main reasons why she’d totally avoided coming back to Beacon Hills for the last few years. It reminded her of everything a little too much.

 

Her breathing slowed and she brushed her fingers through her hair, smoothing down the skirt of her dress. It was okay. She’d go back in, grab her things from the Sheriff’s office, and sneak out. She wouldn’t say goodbye. She’d just slip away. If she did see anyone on the way, she’d tell them that she wasn’t feeling well and would just see them at the reunion tomorrow night instead. After all, all these people would be there. She didn’t _need_ to be at the house party.

 

The old Lydia Martin wouldn’t have dared miss a social event, but she wasn’t the old Lydia Martin anymore.

 

She got to her feet, ready to sneak back inside and make a low-key exit, just as the door to the house opened and someone stepped out. She suspected it would be Scott, checking on her, but the person sighed loudly and stepped forwards into the porch light. He hadn’t even seen her standing there, just to his left.

 

He was just as she remembered.

 

He was wearing a dark red T-shirt, which almost looked black because of how dark it was outside, and jeans with sneakers. His hair — messy and a little shorter than she remembered, like he’d just had it cut — looked like he’d been running his hands through it all night. His shoulders were broader, and those moles — she’d forgotten about those moles. How could she forget? She used to dream of touching his face and tracing them — were _exactly_ the same.

 

She drank in the sight of him, feeling like she was looking at something she shouldn’t be. He didn’t know she was standing right there. He was rubbing his face with his hands, sighing occasionally, thinking. Clearly thinking.

 

She knew she had to say something eventually — the longer she waited, the weirder it became.

 

She took a deep breath and opened her mouth at the exact same time he turned, spinning in her direction to head back inside.

 

The sight of her standing there stopped him in his tracks.

 

He looked at her, his hand dropping from his face, recognition showing in his eyes.

 

“Lydia?” he asked, his voice just as she remembered. “Is that you?”


	3. Saving Lydia

Stiles looked across his father’s front porch at Lydia Martin.

 

He could barely hide the growing smile on his face as he looked right at her, looking back at him. She’d cut her hair. He remembered how long it had grown to in their senior year — she’d constantly been brushing it out of her face in their math class, becoming increasingly frustrated with it as she tried, and succeeded, to solve equations faster than anyone else in the room — but she’d cut it. It fell just to her collarbone, but it was still the colour he remembered it.

 

She looked the same. Older, but the same.

 

He remembered how much he’d had a thing for her in high school, and even though he hadn’t seen her in ten years, he had no trouble remembering why he’d had such a huge crush on her.

 

“Stiles.”

 

She stepped forwards into the light, smiling softly at him. He’d always liked how her lips pursed together in a small smile — he’d always counted himself extremely lucky if Lydia had given him a real, with-teeth smile. It was rare. Wonderful and rare.

 

“You’re here! You’re at my house!”

 

She nodded. “I just got here.”

 

“You’re in Beacon Hills,” he continued, apparently only being able to state the freaking _obvious._ “For the reunion.”

 

“For the reunion,” she repeated, nodding. Then, maybe as an afterthought, she added, “And maybe a little bit longer.”

 

“Oh, right.” He tried not to get his hopes up. She’d only said _maybe._ “I’m here next week, too.”

 

“You are?”

 

“It’s, uh … It’s the anniversary of my mom’s death. I always spend it with my dad.”

 

Her face fell. “Sorry to hear that.”

 

“It’s okay,” Stiles told her, even though it wasn’t. He just didn’t want her to feel bad. “It’s been nineteen years.”

 

“Time doesn’t make it any easier.”

 

He looked at her for a few seconds before it dawned on him what she meant. He could see by her face that she was struggling not to look affected by their conversation.

 

“Right,” he said finally, frowning at her. “You still think about her? Allison, I mean.”

 

She pursed her lips. Stiles had long ago learned the difference between how she pursed her lips into a smile or from exasperation. This was definitely the latter.

 

“She was my best friend, Stiles, of course I still think about her.”

 

“Of course,” he said quickly. “So do I. And so does Scott.”

 

Lydia nodded and he had the distinct feeling that he’d lost her. He’d lost her! He’d accidentally mentioned her dead best friend, had insinuated that she _didn’t_ still think about her, and had freaked her out a little in doing so. His mind raced through ways of fixing this, but he couldn’t think of anything.

 

Lydia Martin was on his father’s porch, talking to him, and he didn’t know how to _keep_ her there.

 

“Everyone’s here, you know,” he said desperately, not even sure where he was going with the sentence, “you feel like going back in and saying hi to everyone? I’m pretty sure that Jackson _isn’t_ in there.”

 

Lydia smiled. “You still hate him, huh?”

 

“I never … _hated_ the guy …”

 

“Come on, Stiles. You hated him.”

 

Stiles gave in. “He was an asshole. He was just … absolutely an asshole. Why did you ever date him?”

 

“He may have been an asshole but he was good with his hands,” Lydia told him, glancing over at him with a sly smile. He blew his cheeks out like a puffer fish, annoyed but unable to truly show it. After all, he had absolutely zero reason to be annoyed that Lydia had dated Jack-ass Whittemore.

 

“ _That_ was information I could have gone a whole lifetime without knowing,” Stiles said, “so, thank you for that.”

 

“You’re welcome,” she replied, even smiling a little with teeth. His smile only grew wider when he saw that. _Yes_ , he thought, _a real smile._

 

“What do you say?” he asked. “You want to come inside?”

 

Lydia glanced out towards the street like she needed to go — like she was ready to make an excuse — and Stiles thought desperately of anything that might make her stay. _Anything._

 

“Like I said, there’s loads of people here from our class,” he said quickly. “Kira Yukimura, Danny Mahealani—” He stopped, snapping his fingers — “Malia Tate. You know Malia, right?”

 

Lydia’s entire expression — which sported the lingering remnants of a smile — changed. She pursed her lips in the disapproving, unimpressed way, and straightened up. She was no longer relaxed around him; she was on high defensive. He could tell. It had been ten years but he could still tell. She hadn’t changed at all — he almost prided himself on the fact that he still appeared to know her so well.

 

So why had she changed suddenly when he’d mentioned Malia’s name?

 

“You know what? I should be going,” Lydia said.

 

“What?” Stiles asked. “No! The party’s only just getting started.”

 

“My mom will be getting worried.”

 

“Lydia,” Stiles smiled. “We’re twenty-eight.”

 

“But I was on my way home from the airport,” she explained, shaking her head, “and the cab came this way instead of the usual way … Look, it doesn’t matter. My mom will be waiting up for me and I should go.”

 

“But we have beer ...”

 

“Yeah,” she replied, “warm, flat beer. As interesting as that sounds, I’m still going to have to pass.”

 

Stiles looked at her, wondering if she remembered. Wondering if that was why she’d said it. Did she remember? Was she trying to make him remember? Because he remembered; he didn’t need her to jog his memory.

 

The thoughts whirled around his head, colliding into each other, and he tilted his head, smiling.

 

Then, she continued, “I’ll see you tomorrow at the reunion.”

 

He opened his mouth to stop her from going, from leaving, but he was too busy thinking about their sophomore year formal and the words she’d spoken to him when he’d asked her to dance: _Interesting tactic. I’m going to stick with no._

 

Maybe she hadn’t said it on purpose, maybe she just really hadn’t changed at all. Or maybe, just maybe, that moment had meant as much to her as it did to him and she was trying to show it in her own way.

 

Lydia slipped inside the house to collect her things, passing by him, and he watched her ago. He’d spent so long watching her go. He headed back into the house as Lydia emerged from his father’s office with a bag slung over her shoulder.

 

He tried to walk casually over to her. “Let me help you with that.”

 

“It’s okay,” she said, “I can do it.”

 

“I can walk you home,” he offered. “These streets can be pretty dangerous at night.”

 

“Beacon Hills, Stiles, really?” she asked. She raised an eyebrow, then lowered her voice. “I _know_ how dangerous the streets can be. If you remember, I predicted most of it.”

 

“Then let me walk with you.”

 

“I’ll be okay,” she insisted. “It isn’t far.”

 

God, she was so stubborn. He didn’t remember her being this stubborn — had she always been this stubborn? Actually, yes. She had.

 

“It’s like four blocks.”

 

“Stiles,” Lydia narrowed her eyes at him. “Stay here at your party. I’ll be fine.” She punctuated each word carefully enough for him to know that she meant it and she would not be backing down.

 

“If you need me, call me,” he told her firmly. “I’ll come.”

 

She smiled at him quickly, before she headed out of the house and the front door shut behind her. Stiles stared at the door for too long, until Scott appeared in front of him with a knowing expression on his face.

 

“Your heartbeat’s going a little fast there, man,” Scott said.

 

“I just … lied? A lot.”

 

“You mean, you just saw Lydia,” Scott corrected him. “You talked to her, didn’t you?”

 

Stiles knew he didn’t need to play things cool around Scott. Scott knew exactly how lame Stiles could be. “Out there on the porch for a little while. I offered to walk her home, but she said no.”

 

“That’s because she’s Lydia,” Scott said. “Don’t you remember how stubborn she always was?”

 

“I remember a lot about her,” Stiles answered. “You know what? I think maybe this could be it. We could be friends with Lydia Martin again.”

 

“So, you admit that we _were_ friends with her?”

 

Stiles rolled his eyes. He didn’t like to think about their senior year much. After Allison’s death, Lydia had stopped speaking to them. It was completely out of the blue, and Stiles still didn’t know exactly what had happened. He’d figured out that it was probably too painful for Lydia to be friends with them after Allison died, considering Scott and Allison had been together and Scott probably served as a reminder for her. But he didn’t understand why that meant Lydia had to _completely_ avoid them and literally never speak to them again.

 

Still. He’d never held it against her. Grief made people do strange things. He thought of his dad, still unsure how to get through the day of his mom’s death even after nineteen years, and knew that grief couldn’t be wrapped up in a box and tied neatly with a bow. It got easier, it got better, but it didn’t ever fully go away.

 

Stiles just hated thinking of the year he’d finally started to get to know Lydia Martin — _finally_ get to know her! — and how it had come to an end so quickly. How it had been ripped away from him so easily. He didn’t want to pity himself. Lydia had lost her best friend; Scott had lost the first girl he’d ever loved. Stiles didn’t get to pity himself just because Lydia stopped speaking to them.

 

Stiles sighed. “Fine, we were. Before everything happened — you know. Everything that happened that year.” 

 

“Yeah, her best friend died,” Scott reminded him. “We should have been there for her more.”

 

“We were, Scott,” Stiles said, “we were.”

 

They’d tried. They _had_ tried.

 

Stiles had waited by her locker every morning and waved when he saw her, even though she had tried to avoid him. He still walked her to her classes; he still gestured for her to sit with them at lunch. But she didn’t. She started taking different routes to class, or dashing out of the classroom before he got the chance to catch up with her, or took forever lingering in the classroom so that he had to leave before her to get to his next class. She knew that he was gesturing for her to sit with them at lunch, but she avoided looking over at him and slid onto the table next to the jocks and people she’d hung out with before Allison.

 

Every time, he tried to tell himself that she was hurting and he shouldn’t take it personally. And he _didn’t_ — he knew exactly how she felt. He’d lost Allison too, and so had Scott. It was hard not to take it personally, but he tried.

 

Eventually, he stopped waiting by her locker or intercepting her routes to class. He stopped gesturing for her to sit down with them at lunch. Malia joined the school and the pack, and became his girlfriend. Lydia was no longer his priority — sure, he still cared about her and he hadn’t forgotten her.

 

He still found himself looking over at her table at lunch, but soon six months turned into a year and Lydia’s friendship seemed like something that had never even happened. Like some distant dream.

 

“Yeah, I know,” Scott agreed, sighing. “I don’t think she’s over Allison’s death.”

 

Stiles nodded. “I kind of got that impression, too.”

 

“Look, I know that you’re here for a break from work and you probably don’t want to get involved …”

 

Stiles raised an eyebrow. “But?”

 

“But don’t you think we should do something?” Scott asked, shrugging. “It’s _Lydia_.”

 

“Lydia freaking Martin,” Stiles said, as though this needed clarifying. He shrugged. “There once was a time when I would have done anything for her. I risked my life for her time after time.”

 

“You risked your life for her like, two times, Stiles.”

 

“ _Way_ more than that! More like ... four, okay?” Stiles countered, frowning. “But my point is: she needs help. _Our_ help.”

 

“You got any ideas?”

 

“I’ve got one,” Stiles said, “but I don’t think she’ll go for it. At all.”

 

_______________________________________

 

 

Lydia opened the door of her mom’s house, and Stiles and Scott both grinned up at her.

 

Stiles could tell from the look on her face that she was immediately suspicious. She narrowed her eyes at them, pulling the door in just slightly like she was concerned they would ask to be invited in.

 

Stiles thought that maybe she _wasn’t_ the same Lydia. Last night, he’d prided himself on still knowing her — knowing her even though they hadn’t spoken in eleven years.

 

But the old Lydia would have rolled her eyes, cracked some smart-ass comment or joke and headed back into the house, leaving it up to them if they followed. The Lydia standing in front of them looked suspicious rather than bored; defensive rather than indifferent.

 

It threw him. He’d been expecting her to look out at the Jeep — it had needed a few repairs and about a roll of duct tape, but was good to go after several attempts at starting it — and smile reluctantly. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t even smiled a little bit.

 

Where was the Lydia he’d known in high school?

 

“I’m not getting in that death trap,” she said flatly.

 

“Oh, come on, Lydia,” Stiles said, his shoulders falling with disappointment.

 

He’d been sure that the sight of the Jeep would bring back priceless memories and she’d be eager to relive them, but … well, apparently not.

 

“I’m busy.”

 

“What is it with people around here claiming to be _busy_?” Stiles asked, pointedly throwing a look in Scott’s direction. Scott rolled his eyes in response.

 

“I told you to get over that, and it’s not exactly relevant right now,” he murmured sharply, before he turned his attention to Lydia. “Would you get in the car with us? Please?”

 

“I’m spending the day with my mom,” she answered. Stiles hadn’t known her like this in a long time. It was almost like something had caused her to revert to her early high school self: angry and defensive.

 

“You can’t spare an hour?” Stiles asked hopefully. He hadn’t thought for one second that Lydia would be agreeable to their plan, but he hadn’t anticipated her refusal to get into the Jeep in the first place.

 

Lydia frowned. Frowns suited her, Stiles thought. He preferred her smiles, but frowns suited her too. 

 

“Where are we going?” she asked.

 

Scott looked at Stiles. They were both thinking the same thing: _Should we lie?_

 

“And,” Lydia cut in sharply, “don’t even think about lying to me.”

 

“The cemetery.”

 

She froze, her eyes widening just slightly at the thought of it. Stiles realised that it was possible they were in over their heads; Lydia was worse than he thought.

 

Stiles felt uncomfortable whenever he visited the cemetery to lay flowers down his mom’s grave, and then by Allison’s too, but he still did it.

 

“Have you ever visited her?” Scott asked gently.

 

“It’s not _her_ ,” Lydia replied hotly. “It’s a decomposing body in a coffin under the ground. That isn’t Allison.”

 

“It helps, though,” Scott said. “It feels like you’re talking to her.”

 

Stiles often laid flowers by her grave and said a few words whenever he got a chance, but he knew that Scott visited more often and talked to her more. Stiles had sometimes picked him up from the cemetery and would wait out by the gates, watching as his best friend crouched in front of her stone, his hand on top of it, and talked on and on like she was there beside him.

 

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Lydia said.

 

Scott beamed and Stiles groaned, looking at Lydia with his eyebrow raised. Why, of all things, did Lydia have to say _that_? Of all things? Scott _loved_ to play this card. He adored it. She had inadvertently given him an opening.

 

“Neither are werewolves,” he replied with a smile.

 

Stiles rolled his eyes — how many times had Scott cranked that one out in the last fifteen years? — and looked at Lydia, trying to look at her in a way that casually conveyed he was concerned about her wellbeing, not that he was checking her out.

 

Lydia caught his eye and smiled involuntarily; it seemed to catch her off-guard as she turned her attention back to Scott. Of course. He was the leader, after all. He was the alpha and the man in the charge. But Stiles couldn’t help but wish, just a little, that Lydia’s attention was on him.

 

Lydia sighed and Stiles thought that they’d lost her — she was going to turn around and storm back into the house, shutting the door and effectively shutting them out of her life again — but she stepped forwards and shut the door behind her. She jogged down the steps and passed them, heading towards the passenger side of the Jeep.

 

Scott and Stiles exchanged surprised — but _pleasantly_ surprised — looks as they followed Lydia slowly, taking their time and taking the opportunity to discuss.

 

“Okay,” Stiles murmured. “She’s getting in the car. Now what?”

 

Scott narrowed his eyes at Stiles. “What do you mean _now what_? This was _your_ plan!”

 

“I was in two minds about the whole thing, actually. Part of me didn’t think she’d get in the car, in all honesty,” Stiles answered, wrinkling his nose.

 

He watched as Lydia opened the door to the Jeep and got inside, settling into the passenger seat. She looked so at ease, sitting in his Jeep. He pushed the vivid memories from their junior year out of his mind and opened the driver’s seat door, jumping inside.

 

“Let me ask you something,” Lydia said, almost as soon as Stiles was settled in the front and Scott had jumped into the back.

 

“What’s that?”

 

“How on _earth_ is this thing still running? Not to mention safe to drive. It was a death trap back in high school, let alone now.”

 

Stiles patted the steering wheel lovingly, then cranked the key in the ignition a few times before it _thankfully_ caught and burst to life.

 

“It perseveres,” he told her, “against all odds. Also: duct tape. Lots of it. Everywhere … in the general vicinity of the car. Holding pretty much everything together.”

 

Lydia leaned her head back against the headrest and looked at him, rolling her eyes. “Well, that sounds incredibly safe.”

 

“It is,” Stiles promised. He shifted the Jeep in gear and eased away from Lydia’s house, heading in the direction of the cemetery. He tapped the steering wheel fondly. “It’s been through a lot with us, this Jeep. It’s part of the family.”

 

“It’s still a death trap,” Lydia said. She sighed, her shoulders dropping. “Look, I don’t know why you guys are so concerned about me. It isn’t like we were even friends in high school.”

 

Hurt crossed Stiles’s face at her words.

 

_We weren’t even friends in high school._

 

Had she forgotten their junior year? Had she forgotten all those hours they’d spent together, in this very Jeep? They’d solved cases together, they’d driven around town together, they’d _saved lives_ together. He’d known at the time that Lydia had purposefully erased their friendship from her mind, but he hadn’t realised it would continue now.

 

“That’s where you’re wrong, Lydia,” Stiles cranked the Jeep up a gear, staring at the street ahead with determination. This had become his personal mission: to help Lydia. “We _were_ friends.”

 

“And we’ll be your friends again,” Scott promised from the back. “We’re here for you, Lydia.”

 

Stiles beamed across at her, waiting until he saw that tell of hers that gave away if she was hiding a smile. And there it was: her lip twitched and she sucked her lips in thoughtfully, like she was embarrassed that he’d made her smile.

 

“And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it,” Stiles finished.

 

Lydia had anticipated this next part — he knew he well enough to guess that — and she rolled her eyes at him, but he noticed that she was trying to hide a smile too.


	4. Interventions

Lydia stood way back as Scott crouched down in the patch of grass in front of Allison’s headstone. She watched as he placed a hand on the top of the stone and laid down the bunch of flowers he’d purchased at the gas station on the drive over.

 

Stiles stepped back, falling in line with Lydia.

 

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told her, like he was some expert.

 

She wanted to resent him for that, but instead she found herself wishing he would tell her exactly what to do. She couldn’t go and stand next to a stone. It didn’t mean anything. It wasn’t talking to her — she wasn’t _there._ Even if she could talk to Allison, she wanted to talk about the one thing she _couldn’t_ because he was standing right next to her.

 

And all she could think was how badly she wanted to put her blind faith and trust in Stiles Stilinski. She’d seen the hurt that had crossed his face when she’d claimed they weren’t friends and pretended like their junior year had never happened. She’d wanted to acknowledge that she remembered all of it — every single conversation they’d had and every moment they’d spent together — but she didn’t want to go down _that_ hole.

 

Scott straightened up, turning to face them.

 

“Lydia,” he said. He’d saved one flower from the bunch for her and held it out to her. “You want to give this to her?”

 

She resisted the urge to say: _It isn’t her._

 

Because it _wasn’t._ That wasn’t Allison. That stone wasn’t her. It never had been. Allison was somewhere else; she was shooting her arrows somewhere else, but she wasn’t in the ground.

 

But the way the boys were looking at her, she forced herself to take a few steps forward until she stood right beside the grave. _Argent_ , it read, _Beloved daughter and friend_. Lydia wished it said something else — anything else — to let people know who Allison had been and how important she’d been to so many people. She wasn’t _just_ a daughter and a friend. She was so much more than that.

 

She laid the flower beside the bunch, then touched the headstone like Scott had done. It seemed the right thing to do.

 

“I miss you,” she whispered, before she turned around to face Scott and Stiles. “Okay. I did it. Are you guys happy now?”

 

“For now,” Stiles said, shrugging. “Onto the next part of our plan.”

 

Lydia was simultaneously intrigued and apprehensive. “Which is?”

 

Stiles grinned at her. God, she couldn’t _not_ smile back when he smiled that funny, lopsided smile at her. It twisted her insides and reminded her of their junior year: of the sweet smiles as he’d made promises to her as she laid on his bed with her shoes kicked off; of their kiss in the locker room when he’d told her she was smart; of all the times in class she’d caught his eye, sitting beside her as usual, and he’d grinned at her. Maybe it hadn’t meant much to him, but it had meant a lot to her. His smile was filled with hope and made her laugh. It had always settled her, despite whatever crazy things had been going on that week.

 

Whenever she smiled back at him or dipped her head to hide a smile, he smiled even brighter than before. Right now, he was beaming.

 

“Lunch,” he announced.

 

She nodded. She could deal with lunch. Lunch was easy.

 

“Okay,” she said. “Where?”

 

“My house,” he said. “I’m cooking.”

 

“Oh,” she replied. She looked at Scott. “All of us?”

 

“Actually,” Scott replied, wincing, “I kind of promised Kira I’d help set up with some of the reunion stuff for tonight. You know, moving heavy things.”

 

Lydia _wished_ she could use his party trick and listen to his heartbeat to determine if he was lying or not. She couldn’t figure out if Scott and Stiles were trying to help her, or if this was all some elaborate plan concocted for Lydia to end up on a date with Stiles. Or maybe it was a combination of the two. Who was Lydia to argue with them, though? These days, she just kind of floated along with whatever people said. The old Lydia might have kicked up more of a fuss and demanded an explanation, but the current Lydia didn’t _mind._ She didn’t mind one way or another. She was too tired to argue. She was too tired to fight back.

 

“So,” Lydia said. She turned to Stiles. “Just the two of us then?”

 

“Yep,” Stiles answered. His tone was becoming increasingly chipper. On anyone else, it might have been annoying. On Stiles, it was kind of endearing. “Come on.”

 

But then Lydia thought about what would happen if she went to Stiles’s house and let him cook for her. They would talk. She couldn’t _avoid_ that. They would talk and Stiles would talk about the reunion and mention what a shame it was that they stopped being friends.

 

Maybe he’d flirt with her a little; maybe she’d let him. Maybe she’d let herself think about being with someone else — someone new — for the first time in a while.

 

Maybe she would let Stiles Stilinski save her.

 

She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t bring him into her life, her grief, her mess. Not again. She had to shut him out — shut them _both_ out — again. It was the only way.

 

“I really can’t,” she said suddenly. Stiles turned to look at her, his face visibly falling. “I’m here for my mom. I can’t just …”

 

“Spend time with your friends?” Scott asked, his voice gentle and very Scott-like.

 

Lydia shook her head. Why didn’t they _get_ it? They couldn’t be her friends. She hadn’t seen them in ten years and hadn’t spoken to them in eleven. Why did they _want_ to be her friend? They were just people she’d once known. Scott was just someone who had once dated her friend. She had to make them realise that.

 

“We aren’t friends,” she said to them, shaking her head.

 

She hated the look of hurt flashing across both their faces, but it had to be done. She had to be cruel, just like she’d had to be after Allison died. It was better for them.

 

They didn’t want to be friends with her. They didn’t want to get dragged into the real reason why she was back in Beacon Hills.

 

“Lydia,” Stiles said, “come on …”

 

“I didn’t come back here for this reunion,” she told them flatly. “I didn’t come back here to be happily reunited with all of you. I came back for my _mom,_ it just happened to coincide. So, I don’t want your charity or your pity. I don’t want you to think you’re my friends. I just …”

 

She threw her hands up in the air, shaking her head. Being cruel used to be so easy, but now she tried to hide her grimaces when every word left her mouth.

 

“I just don’t want any of this, okay?”

 

She walked past them, brushing past Stiles’s arm as she went. She felt his arm against hers and immediately wished she could take it all back, but she couldn’t.

 

  
It took her thirty-five minutes to walk home. The cemetery was on the outskirts of town, something that she’d never really noticed before in the car. The walk home gave her time to reflect; she kept waiting for Stiles’s Jeep to drive past her, but it never did. She guessed that they’d either stayed at the cemetery for longer — they had a lot of graves to visit; a lot of lost friends, family members, classmates to pay respects to — or they’d taken another route home to avoid passing her.

 

She knew that her cruelness would be the topic of conversation. She wondered if either of them would defend her. Maybe Scott. But she couldn’t help but think that it would be a painful reminder of how she’d destroyed their friendship in junior year, too. Perhaps not even Scott could defend her now.

 

She finally reached her mother’s house and let herself inside. Her mom wasn’t even home.

 

Apparently, she was out for dinner with Eric and told Lydia to have fun at the reunion if they weren’t back before then. The reunion was scheduled to start in a little less than five hours, so Lydia wondered what she could do for that time.

 

It was evident that she had no friends in town, so calling someone up and asking them if they wanted to come over and hang out was out of the question. Very briefly, she considered calling Jackson, until she reminded himself that she would rather the spend the rest of her life alone before spending an afternoon with him.

 

She considered not even going. Would anyone miss her? She doubted it.

 

So, in the end, she settled in front of the TV with her laptop on her lap. She worked away, catching up on work she hadn’t even fallen behind with yet. Taking some time off work meant that she’d fall behind for sure, but she wanted to show Mickey that she was more than capable of coping with everything. No matter what she was going through.

 

Lydia had become used to spending time by herself. She remembered being younger and craving attention and company, never wanting to be alone. That was why she had dated all through high school, pretty much. She’d hated being alone. After Allison, it was all she wanted. To be by herself. By herself, she didn’t need to pretend that she was okay. She could just … not be okay. Then, in New York, Matthew had come along. For the first time in a long time, Lydia found herself wanting to be around someone. He’d made her feel safe, like nothing could go wrong …

 

But she didn’t want to think about that.

 

She was in Beacon Hills now, not New York. And she was going to do what she did best: put the past behind her and forget it had ever happened.

 

___________________________________

 

 

She brushed out her red hair, her mind elsewhere, and thought of the ironies that she was putting the past firmly behind her while getting ready for her high-school reunion.

 

She didn’t want to go.

 

She really didn’t want to face Stiles and Scott. Not tonight. Not ever.

 

But about thirty minutes earlier, there had been a knock on the door of her mom’s house. She’d opened it, expecting a delivery man or something similar, only to find Kira Yukimura standing on the front porch. Kira had looked extremely awkward and uncomfortable standing there, but she smiled at Lydia.

 

“Hey, Lydia.”

 

“Hi,” Lydia replied. Lydia still felt a twinge whenever she saw Kira, though she knew it was unfair to her to compare her to Allison. Scott and Allison hadn’t even been together when Allison had died; Kira wasn’t Allison’s replacement and Lydia knew that, but it didn’t make her feel better about it.

 

“I’ve come to help,” Kira said.

 

“Help with what?”

 

“We’re going to the reunion,” Kira told her.

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Kira sighed, her shoulders falling. “Okay. I thought you might be unsure about it. I want to help. You should come tonight, it’ll be fun.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Lydia frowned, “is this an intervention?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

“I don’t even know you.”

 

“Too bad,” Kira answered, shrugging. “Because I feel like I know everything about you.”

 

Lydia sighed. “Stiles and Scott?”

 

“Nope,” Kira shook her head. “You were the most popular girl in school. How could I forget you?”

 

“So,” Lydia folded her arms across her body, curiosity overtaking her. “Why are you _here_?”

 

“Your name is down on the list for tonight,” Kira told her, rummaging around in her pocket and producing a wad of paper. She waved them in front of Lydia like this might prove something. Lydia raised an eyebrow in return. “But Scott just came down to the high school to help me out with the reunion stuff and he mentioned that he didn’t think you’d be coming after all.”

 

“So …”

 

“I organised this reunion,” Kira said. “I kind of feel like it’s my own personal mission to make sure everyone comes tonight. I really think you’ll regret it if you don’t.”

 

Lydia almost smiled. It was endearing how much she cared. But she didn’t feel like smiling.

 

“I’m not going to the reunion.”

 

“It’s just one night,” Kira continued, apparently not backing down. “And you don’t even have to stay for the whole thing. I definitely won’t be.”

 

Lydia frowned. “I thought you planned this whole thing?”

 

“Well, yeah. I did. But I don’t want to stay for all of it,” Kira replied, like this was obvious. She hesitated. Then, “I think we’re all … heading to the beach after.”

 

 _We’re all heading there._ She didn’t mean the entire class of 2013. She meant her friends. Scott, Stiles, probably Malia. Maybe more, but Lydia wasn’t sure. Those kids — who, she supposed, weren’t kids anymore — Liam and Mason, who’d started hanging around with them when they were seniors, would possibly be there. She didn’t know because she wasn’t part of their group, and it was clear.

 

“Right,” Lydia said, “well, just another reason for me not to go. I don’t even know if my friends are going and if you guys aren’t staying, then …”

 

Kira raised her eyebrow, just slightly. “Maybe you could come to the beach with us?”

 

Lydia thought back to how she’d spoken to Stiles and Scott at the cemetery. There was no way they’d allow her to join them on their beach trip with their friends. They were probably rolling their eyes and complaining at each other about her as she thought about them. They would hate her; she knew getting them to hate her had been her _intention_ , but she still didn’t think she could deal with it being the truth.

 

“I shouldn’t,” Lydia replied.

 

“Why not?”

 

She didn’t have an excuse. She hadn’t had time to think of one. “I just … can’t.”

 

Kira fell quiet.

 

Then, just when Lydia thought that she’d given up and had accepted defeat, she said, “Let me help you.”

 

“Why?”

 

Kira shrugged. “I just want to.”

 

Maybe it was that she didn’t seem to have an ulterior motive. Or maybe it was that Kira clearly remembered her from school and the only way Lydia remembered her was as Scott’s girlfriend after Allison. And that wasn’t fair to Kira. She was trying — _really_ trying — to convince Lydia to go to the reunion and let Kira help her, maybe she should just accept help from somebody once in her life.

 

She’d always been too stubborn for her own good.

 

Attempting to look indifferent and nonchalant, she opened the front door wider.

 

“Okay,” she said, shrugging. “What are we doing?”

 

“The reunion starts in a few hours,” Kira said, “we need to get ready. Hair, make-up, everything.”

 

“Okay,” Lydia could do hair and make-up. She imagined curling Kira’s hair, just like she’d curled Allison’s, and bonding over it. She allowed herself to imagine being friends with someone; letting someone in.

 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Kira began, stepping into the house, “but I invited one of my friends over, too. I thought the three of us could get ready together — since she had nobody to get ready with either. God, doesn’t this just feel like high school all over again?”

 

Lydia’s stomach started sinking. She had a feeling she knew exactly who Kira’s friend would be. “Oh …”

 

“Malia should be here soon,” Kira promised, reaching for her phone in her back pocket. “She’s bringing my dress with me.”

 

Lydia could hardly turn her around and demand that she leave her house. She stood awkwardly in the foyer, clasping her hands together and staring at Kira with discomfort. She kept thinking about Stiles and Malia in the hallways at the high school: they had never seemed big fans of PDA, but she’d known they were a couple. Just from the way they looked at each other and smiled at each other, she’d known. And now it seemed like Stiles was back in town for her — at least, that was what Lydia assumed.

 

She would just have to deal with Malia Tate being there.

 

Hanging out with Stiles Stilinski’s ex-girlfriend for the afternoon. Well, she’d already taken a trip to the cemetery as part of an ambush plan — if she could just about handle that, she felt like she was ready for anything.

 

_____________________________________

 

Now, Lydia brushed her hair out, cocking her head at her reflection in the mirror. She could hear Kira and Malia in the other room, laughing loudly together, and she felt a flash of jealousy rush through her.

 

They were in _her_ house, but they were sitting together in the living room while Lydia stood in her mom’s room — the lighting was better; the mirror was bigger — getting ready. She swiped a coat of lipstick onto her lips furiously, then capped it.

 

Okay.

 

So, she’d left them to get ready for the reunion. She’d gone to her mom’s room, claiming there was better light, and they’d both nodded politely like they were secretly relieved she was leaving. But they were in _her_ house. She felt angry. She didn’t need Kira’s pity, or Malia’s reluctant company — and that was exactly what it was: reluctant — to get ready for the reunion. Clearly, neither of them wanted to be there.

 

She steeled herself, looking at herself in the mirror and reminding herself who she was: she was Lydia freaking Martin, and she wasn’t going to let these women pity her.

 

She walked into the living room, calm and focused. Malia and Kira were sitting together on the couch, laughing. Lydia overheard some of their conversation as she walked in, her interest rising as she heard Stiles’s name.

 

“ … and then, remember, Stiles whacked him on the back of the head with the baseball bat,” Malia was in the middle of saying.

 

“Oh, _God_ ,” Kira groaned, but she was smiling. “That baseball bat. I swear, that was the only thing he could actually defend himself with.”

 

“In Stiles’s defence,” Malia added, shrugging. Lydia could hear the smile in her voice as she walked about him, even with her back turned. “He was in a pack with werewolves, were-coyotes and a kitsune. He didn’t need much in the way of defending himself. We all had his back.”

 

Lydia wondered what battle they were talking about. She remembered Stiles’s bat — the damn thing. She remembered how she’d rolled her eyes whenever he’d grabbed it.

 

She’d had the same feelings about it that Malia and Kira seemed to have, but she wouldn’t have been there for whatever moment they were discussing. Malia and Kira had become friends with Scott and Stiles after Lydia stopped speaking to them.

 

But she had an overwhelming urge to join in with the conversation. _She’d_ been part of the pack at one point, too. Before them. Before Allison died. And they had to know that she’d once been just as important in Scott and Stiles’s lives as they were.

 

She, too, remembered the bat.

 

“That bat,” Lydia couldn’t stop herself. Both of the women turned and looked at her, surprised but not looking annoyed at her entrance. “It was the most ridiculous thing.”

 

For the first time since her arrival, Malia cracked a smile. “Right? He thought that it was unbreakable, but the truth was that he bought about three of those things _because_ they kept getting broken.”

 

“Smashed to pieces by alphas,” Kira reminisced with a smile, “broken in half by Deucalion that one time.”

 

“Also,” Malia added, “there was that one time we were actually playing baseball and Scott kind of forgot about the whole … werewolf strength thing.”

 

“Oh my God,” Kira laughed. “I forgot about that!”

 

Lydia fell quiet. She was out of the loop again, but instead of walking away, she settled down on the other couch beside them.

 

“Did Stiles break his bat at all when you were friends with the boys?” Kira asked Lydia, probably out of politeness more than anything, but Lydia still found herself appreciating the effort.

 

“No, but he did use it whenever the opportunity arose,” Lydia told them. “But he only had one, so when I needed something to fight with—”

 

“To fight with?” Malia asked, frowning. “Why did you need something to fight with?”

 

“To help,” Lydia said plainly.

 

“You needed a bat to help?”

 

“Well,” Lydia replied, “I didn’t have anything else.”

 

“No strength?”

 

“I’m not a werewolf,” she reminded them.

 

“Right,” Malia said, frowning. “You’re a psychic.”

 

“I’m a banshee.”

 

“What’s the difference?”

 

“There’s—” Lydia’s voice was a little shrill, her eyes a little too wide, and she told herself sternly dial it back — “a difference. A psychic can see the future. A banshee can feel death.”

 

“Cheerful,” Malia muttered.

 

But Kira seemed intrigued. “So, the whole banshee thing. I always wanted to ask you: how does it work?”

 

“Voices,” Lydia explained, “in my head.”

 

Malia raised an eyebrow, like she didn’t believe it. Lydia felt like scoffing, _You’re a freaking were-coyote._ She didn’t. She already felt animosity between them. She didn’t feel like adding to that.

 

Malia said, “All the time?”

 

“It comes and goes,” she told them. She didn’t want to admit that even after all these years, she hadn’t controlled the feelings and voices that were in her head. She’d tried — _how_ she’d tried. But she hadn’t managed to succeed yet.

 

“Like phone calls from the dead?” Malia asked.

 

She tilted her head. “Uh … Sure. Something like that.”

 

“Cool,” Malia answered, then returned to applying make-up to her cheekbones. Lydia consciously touched her own face, almost wishing she’d delayed putting on her own make-up so that she could apply it with Malia and Kira. But she’d made that decision and her make-up was already on.

 

“When are we leaving, Kira?” Lydia asked.

 

Kira checked the time. “It’s six now and the reunion starts at seven-thirty. I need to be there by seven, but I understand if you two want to wait here and meet me later.”

 

Malia and Lydia exchanged looks. They were suspicious of each other. Malia could hear Lydia’s heartbeat and knew there was something not quite right about her. She was hiding something. Lydia could see the way that Malia looked at her like she knew her secret and she didn’t like it.

 

“I’m fine getting there early,” Lydia said.

 

“Me too,” Malia agreed almost instantaneously.

 

Lydia arched an eyebrow. At least they were both on the same page. Besides, Lydia didn’t mind getting to the reunion early.

 

The earlier she got there, the earlier she got to leave.


	5. You're Not Just A Girl

Stiles picked up his badge from the table, shooting the girl behind the table a look as he pinned the badge to his plaid shirt.

 

He felt someone come up behind him and he turned around, his eyes falling on Scott. He pointed to the badge. “They spelled my name wrong,” he said indignantly.

 

Scott peered closer to look at the name on Stiles’s badge: _Miles Stravinsky._

 

“It isn’t even _close_ ,” Stiles groaned.

 

“It’s kind of close,” Scott disagreed, shrugging. He stifled a laugh. “Well, it rhymes.”

 

“This is ridiculous,” Stiles answered. He glanced over Scott’s head, searching for Kira in the crowd. Maybe she was playing a practical joke on him. After all, she’d planned most of the reunion herself; surely this had to be some kind of a mistake.

 

But when Stiles eventually found her and made her a beeline towards her, he felt his annoyance over his mistaken identity melting away as he realised who she was standing with.

 

Lydia had loosely braided her hair away from her face and secured it in a messy knot at the back of her head. The rest of her hair tumbled in strawberry-blonde curls down to her collarbone. She wore a black leather jacket that he’d never seen before with a floral-patterned dress, and a pair of high-heeled ankle boots. He stopped mid-stride to take in her appearance: the soft way her hair framed her face; the shade of lipstick she was wearing; the subtle glimmer of golden eyeshadow on her eyelids.

 

Even after all these years, Lydia Martin forced him to stop in his tracks so he could fully appreciate her beauty. He couldn’t even remember why he’d marched over there in the first place. All he could think about was that Lydia looked incredible, but he was also pissed at her for what she’d said at the cemetery.

 

And as she turned her head just slightly, laughing at something Kira said, her eyes landed on him. Stiles watched with curiosity as a series of emotions crossed her face.

 

First, he saw guilt.

 

He _knew_ it. He’d known in high school and he’d figured it out at the cemetery too. Lydia liked to pretend that she wasn’t a good person. She liked to pretend that she was selfish and self-absorbed, but the reality was that she cared more than she’d liked to admit. She’d pushed Stiles away on purpose; he didn’t know the reason _why_ , but he knew that she’d done it.

 

The look of guilt on her face confirmed it. He’d seen that look over and over again in the hallways of Beacon Hills, ten years earlier.

 

The second look that crossed her face was warmth. He recognised that on her from their junior year. Driving around Beacon Hills when he would try anything to make her laugh; when they studied together and they swapped notes without a word, but he caught her smiling at him out of the corner of his eye; when he believed in her and her banshee abilities without question or doubt, he’d seen it then, too.

 

And the third look, something more difficult to comprehend with her: discomfort. She’d remembered their exchange from earlier on in the day, just like he had when he saw her and remembered that he was supposed to be pissed at her, and she didn’t know how to react to it.

 

“Um,” he said, temporarily forgetting how to speak as he looked at her. He forced himself to tear his eyes from her and focus on Kira, who had turned to look at him, too. She was holding a clipboard and looking very professional.

 

“Is everything okay, Stiles?” she asked.

 

Stiles couldn’t remember why he’d even come over to them in the first place. He still couldn’t quite get used to Lydia Martin standing in front of him like it was the most casual thing in the world. Like it happened everyday.

 

“Oh my God,” Kira said, “what the hell does _that_ say?”

 

Stiles looked at his friend as she stared at the badge pinned to his shirt. Yes! The name tag! _That_ was why he had marched over to Kira with purpose. He’d remembered!

 

“It’s all wrong,” he explained.

 

Lydia squinted at the badge, suppressing a smile when she realised what it said.

 

“Miles Stravinsky?” she asked. “Are you sure you didn’t just take someone else’s badge?”

 

“There’s no one in our grade called Miles Stravinsky,” he reminded her sharply, reminding himself that he was angry with her. It was tough, but he was adamant. “ _I’m_ Miles Stravinsky.”

 

“Let me take it,” Kira said, “I’ll fix it.”

 

He removed the badge and handed it to her.

 

“Wait here,” she instructed him. “I won’t be long.”

 

“I’ll come with—”

 

“No, no,” Kira shook her head. She turned the badge over in her hand, before shooting Stiles a smile. “I’ll fix it.”

 

She left before Stiles could argue any more. He realised his fatal error: he was alone with Lydia. She seemed to realise that at the same time as him, her expression shifting from amused to distinctly uncomfortable. She clasped her hands together and rocked back on her heels.

 

“So,” Stiles began, clearing his throat. “You made it.”

 

“Kira and, um, Malia came to get ready at mine,” she told him.

 

His expression changed too. _Malia?_ Since when were Malia and Lydia friends? He noticed that she was watching him carefully, so he tried not to look so surprised and confused. He didn’t want her to think that he was surprised she had friends, because that wasn’t the reason why he was surprised at all. He just … had no idea that Lydia and Malia even _knew_ each other.

 

“Oh,” he said, unable to articulate anything else.

 

“They convinced me.”

 

“I’m glad you came,” he told her.

 

He hadn’t spent months agonising over this reunion and hoping she’d come for nothing. He was glad it hadn’t all been in vain. She was here. Maybe he was annoyed with her, but she was here. And it _was_ good to see her again.

 

She looked at him for a while. Finally, she said, “Why are you being so nice to me? After what I said to you earlier.”

 

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m pissed,” he told her, shrugging, “but it’s our reunion. I’m trying not to let it get to me, considering that this will probably be the last time I’ll see you for another … ten years or so. Right?”

 

He’d surprised her. She was quiet.

 

“Because …” He couldn’t stop himself. “Because, you know, of the fact that we aren’t — and apparently never were — friends. At least, that’s what I understood from today.”

 

“Stiles—” 

 

“Am I wrong?”

 

Lydia’s jaw hardened. Stiles wondered if he’d gone too far.

 

“No,” she said finally. “You’re not wrong.”

 

“So, we weren’t _ever_ friends?” he asked.

 

He took a step towards her to keep their conversation between them. He could just picture Jackson hanging around nearby, waiting for an opportunity to speak to Lydia again. And as annoyed as Stiles was with her, she didn’t deserve to be cornered by Jackson at all. Just like always, he would do anything he could to protect her.

 

“Scott dated Allison,” she explained. “We only talked because of Allison.”

 

“We _were_ friends, Lydia,” he said. “We were friends! You came to my house, we studied together, we … we _talked_ about things. Important things. And also not important things, remember? Don’t you remember?”

 

She looked blankly back at him. “We were friends because of Allison. Then everything changed. They broke up and she died.”

 

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it?” he prompted. “Allison.”

 

“She died over ten years ago, Stiles. No, this isn’t about her,” she replied, but he thought he saw a glimmer of shock underneath her otherwise neutral expression. She hated when anybody came close to figuring her out.

 

“I just can’t believe you’d deny our friendship,” Stiles said to her plainly. He shrugged. “That’s all. You know … with Scott meeting Kira around about that time and everything he was going through, you were my best friend, Lydia. I can’t believe you refuse to acknowledge that part of our lives. Unless it wasn’t important to you — which, frankly, sucks. Because it was important to me.”

 

Her shoulders dropped. “Stiles …”

 

“That year was the best year of high school,” he told her, “I _finally_ got to know you. The _real_ you. The Lydia I  _knew_ was in there somewhere. You talked to me. You … It was just important to me, Lydia, and I thought after all these years you might admit that it was important to you, too. But I guess not.”

 

“Stiles …”

 

He waited. He waited to see if she would say anything, but she didn’t. She just looked at him, helpless. He turned around just in time to see Kira hurrying towards him. She held out a badge to him, where she had slotted inside a handwritten note with the correct spelling of his name.

 

“Thanks,” he said with a smile, accepting it from her and pinning it back onto his shirt. “I’m going to find Scott and Malia, okay?”

 

Kira glanced back at Lydia. “You’re not … staying to talk to Lydia?”

 

“Actually,” Stiles looked back at Lydia, who avoided his gaze, “we already caught up.”

 

“Oh,” Kira said. She seemed to sense the tension between them. She didn’t push it. “I’ll be over soon, okay? Are we still on for later?”

 

Stiles nodded. They’d all agreed to go to the beach together after the reunion. Mason was heading back to San Francisco tomorrow morning; Kira had to go back to work in Los Angeles for a few days and wouldn’t be back in town until Thursday, so they had agreed they’d go to the beach so that they could catch up altogether.

 

Kira smiled sadly at Stiles — like she somehow knew exactly what had just transpired between him and Lydia — and he sloped away to locate Scott.

 

Scott was chatting to someone that Stiles didn’t recognise — hey, they’d spent most of their high school career running around after supernatural villains; he didn’t need to remember _everybody_ in their senior class — so he dropped down onto a chair at one of the tables. It wasn’t even 8 p.m. yet. He was miserable and, frankly, wanted to go home already.

 

He’d spent the last few months thinking about the reunion. Although he enjoyed his job — who wouldn’t enjoy working at the freaking FBI? — he missed home. He’d wanted an excuse to round everybody up and see people again. When he’d heard about the reunion, he’d jumped at the chance. And, of course, he’d been lying to Scott. Lydia _had_ crossed his mind maybe a few times. Maybe more than he had previously allowed himself to admit.

 

He’d hoped that she’d be here. He’d hoped that he could spend the evening with her, chatting like they used to, like old times. He’d hoped that maybe he could offer her a ride home and she’d suggest they detour and grab some dinner first. He’d agree because he’d had a gigantic crush on her for years and he owed it to his younger self. He’d hoped that she’d explain just why she’d stopped speaking to them. He’d hoped that she’d be have that explanation and it was so simple, and he’d say: _Of course, how did I not think of that?_ Because Lydia had never told him or even _hinted_ at the reason why she’d stopped speaking to them then; he could guess that it had something to do with Allison, the timing was too suspicious otherwise, but he couldn’t know that for sure. He also couldn’t figure out why she was denying them now either.

 

As he mulled over his misery, someone approached him. He looked up as a shadow fell over him to find Lydia standing there.

 

“I remember this song,” she told him.

 

He frowned at her blankly until he paid attention and listened to the words: Y _our kiss / your kiss oh when I lose my breath / makes me forget the old regrets / it’s everything._

 

“You remember that?” he asked her.

 

“Of course,” she answered. “You really put yourself forward that night.”

 

“Yeah, well,” he muttered.

 

“Will you dance with me?” she asked.

 

He looked at her. “Nobody else is dancing.”

 

“Stiles,” She rolled her eyes. “Get off your ass and dance with me. It’s our _song_.”

 

_It’s our song._

 

Those words were like magic to him. They had a _song_?  
He got to his feet.

 

“You know what,” he said, following her out to the small area that had been left clear as a dance-floor. It was totally empty. “You _do_ still owe me a dance.”

 

“I danced with you,” she reminded him. She reached for his hands, her own ones smooth to touch. He placed his hands on her waist gently, looking at her questioningly. She moved a little closer to him and placed her hands on his shoulders.

 

“For about five minutes,” he replied, “then you went to find Jackson.”

 

“Don’t remind me.”

 

He smiled. The song played overhead: _You’re not just a girl / you’re more like the air and sea / I want you so desperately / and nothing’s gonna keep us apart._ He tried not to pay attention to the lyrics. They hit just a little too close to home for Stiles’s liking.

 

“Everyone’s looking at us,” he told her instead. He could see Scott, Malia and Kira standing together. Malia and Kira looked confused, but Scott was beaming.

 

“So?” Lydia asked. She shifted her hands around his neck and looked up at him. “I’m sorry for what I said.”

 

“Which part?”

 

She rolled her eyes, pursing her lips. “It’s a difficult time for me to think about, that’s all. And I only did … what I did in high school because I was hurting.”

 

He nodded. So, it _was_ to do with Allison. “I understand. You could have just, you know, told me … rather being so mean about it.”

 

“Come on,” she said, “I wasn’t _that_ mean.”

 

“Luckily, I know you well enough not to take you seriously when you’re mean.”

 

Lydia’s expression changed. She peered up at him inquisitively. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

“You can’t fool me,” Stiles told her. He could feel the fabric of her dress underneath his fingertips and her skin underneath that. He tried not to think about it too much, otherwise he might lose his cool. “I know you too well.”

 

“We haven’t talked in eleven years, Stiles,” she reminded him. She straightened up; she was challenging him. But he knew he’d win. Maybe it had been eleven years since they’d last spoken, but he knew her like the back of his hand.

 

“So? I knew you in high school and I know you now. You push people away, Lydia, it’s your thing. It makes _sense_ now. You’ve been devastated ever since Allison died — understandably, obviously — and it’s affecting you more than you’re letting on. You could have just told me — now _and_ in high school. You could have just said.”

 

Lydia glanced down. “It isn’t just Allison.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

She opened her mouth to reply and he waited, feeling like something was coming, but then someone tapped him on the shoulder. When he looked, he saw Malia.

 

“We’re going to the beach in a half-hour,” she told him, her eyes flickering over to Lydia and back to him.

 

“Even Kira admits that this is kind of lame. She said that she’d forgotten how much she disliked most of our senior class, apart from us.”

 

“Thirty minutes?” he asked. He’d wanted to stay longer. Here, with Lydia. “I …”

 

“You’re coming too, right?” Malia asked, directing her question to Lydia. Lydia dropped her arms from around Stiles’s neck and he quickly removed his hands from her waist too.

 

“I shouldn’t,” Lydia said immediately.

 

“Come on,” Stiles turned to her. If Lydia came with them, he didn’t care if they left soon. They could leave right now for all he cared. He just wanted to stay with Lydia. “Come with us.”

 

She visibly grimaced. “I should probably just go home — and there are people I haven’t caught up with yet.”

 

“Who?” Stiles asked, rolling his eyes. “Jackson?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

“He isn’t coming anywhere near you,” Stiles argued, shaking his head. A flicker of a smile crossed her face.

 

“You guys figure this out between yourselves,” Malia said, stepping away. “But we’re leaving in thirty minutes.”

 

“Thanks, Malia,” Stiles said. He smiled at her as she backed away, joining the group of people on the side of the dance floor. At least now a few others had joined them in the space for dancing and they weren’t the only ones. Not that Stiles had really noticed other people joining them, he’d been slightly distracted.

 

When he turned back to Lydia, he noticed her watching him curiously.

 

Determined not to be put off, he said, “You should come with us. It’ll be fun. And Kira’s right, this is kind of lame.”

 

Lydia appeared to consider it.

 

“Just an hour,” he promised. “What else are you going to do? Stay here and talk to these losers for another few hours?”

 

A couple of people from Stiles’s senior biology class walked past and, overhearing him, shot him disgruntled looks. He winced, which only made Lydia smirk. She seemed to enjoy whenever he embarrassed himself or messed up.

 

“Please?”

 

“Fine,” she answered, rolling her eyes. But there was a hint of a smile there; he saw it. He’d spent most of his high school career searching for her smiles and he’d become pretty good at spotting them, even the ones she tried to hide.

 

“Great,” he replied, grinning. “Great.”

 

“I’m going to say hi to Danny,” she said slowly, “and Ethan.”

 

“Right.”

 

“Because of Aidan,” she continued, shifting.

 

“Of course,” he answered. “Do you want me to come with you?”

 

She shook her head. “No, I need to do it by myself.” She hesitated. Then, “But thank you.”

 

He watched her go, heading over to where Danny and Ethan were standing. He scanned the room for Jackson, before he located him over by the refreshments area of the room. Part of him wanted to go over there and brag that he was going to the beach with Lydia, but he knew that would only make him look bad and he didn’t want Lydia to think that he thought of this as some kind of competition, or her as a prize.

 

So, instead, he headed over to Scott.

 

“Did you see that?” Stiles asked as he approached his best friend, grinning. “She asked me to dance.”

 

“It almost feels like we’re sixteen again,” Scott replied dryly, but he smiled. “I’m happy for you, man. It’s nice to see the two of you coming together again.”

 

“Thanks, Scott,” Stiles said. He caught sight of Lydia across the room, talking to Ethan, and he wished he could help her. He looked back at Scott. “She told me that it wasn’t _just_ Allison.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“I don’t know — we were talking about Allison’s death,” Stiles told him. “We were talking about how she’s been since Allison died.”

 

“Crushed,” Scott said.

 

“Exactly,” Stiles continued, “and she said, _It isn’t just Allison_.”

 

Scott frowned.

 

“What if someone else died?” Stiles questioned thoughtfully. “What if she’s not just mourning Allison? Maybe coming back made all those emotions and feelings come back about Allison because she’s mourning someone else, too. And that’s why she’s been so distant. We both know that Lydia didn’t cope well with Allison dying. If someone else died, it could have made things even worse for her.”

 

Scott said, “It might make sense. We’re all still hurting that Allison isn’t here, but at the end of our senior year, Lydia seemed … okay.”

 

“Not as affected as she is now, right?”

 

Scott shrugged. “It might be true — but you don’t know that. If she hasn’t told you, it’s because she doesn’t want to. Don’t scare her away.”

 

“I won’t,” Stiles said. “I’m going to help her.”

 

“If you’re trying to save her, it isn’t going to work,” Scott said. “She won’t let you.”

 

“Lydia doesn’t need me to save her,” Stiles told him, “she doesn’t need anybody to save her. She just needs someone to _remind_ her that she’s Lydia freaking Martin. She can do anything.”

 

“And you’re that someone?”

 

Stiles grinned. “Well, Scott, I’m going to try.”


	6. Everything They Almost Said

Lydia found herself looking over at Stiles as he tweaked the volume of the radio in the Jeep. It had been blasting old country songs when he’d first turned it on, and he’d muttered something almost indistinguishable about how he never listened to country music, and had _no_ idea about how that had happened.

 

She’d just smiled, watching how embarrassed he was about it, before she settled down in her seat in the passenger seat.

 

She remembered riding around in this Jeep through most of their junior year. She’d felt so comfortable in it then: reaching into the back to grab whatever snacks they’d stored in there; slipping off her shoes and propping her bare feet up on the dashboard; reaching over and turning the volume way up when her favourite station played one of her favourite songs, despite his incredibly loud protests.

 

Now, she couldn’t imagine doing any of that. Too much time had passed.

 

But if she looked at him, nodding along to the music he’d so hastily switched to, she could almost picture herself at seventeen-years-old in this exact same position. And she felt _good._ For the first time in a long time, she felt … good.

 

“So,” interrupted a voice from the backseat. Malia Tate leaned forward in her seat, peering between the two front ones, and frowned. “How come _Lydia_ gets to ride shotgun, even though I specifically called shotgun?”

 

“I don’t know, Malia,” Stiles replied, “maybe because you _always_ ride shotgun.”

 

“That’s so unfair!” Malia answered. “I don’t always ride shotgun.”

 

“Most of the time,” Stiles countered.

 

Lydia looked out of the window, trying to tune out of Stiles and Malia’s bickering. She was conscious that she used to bicker with Stiles like that, before she had started ignoring him and he found Malia, and she reminded herself that she shouldn’t feel weird or annoyed by it. Stiles and Malia were reconnecting, it was clear. Although it didn’t seem like they needed to _re_ -connect so much, as Malia apparently _always_ rode shotgun. Lydia wondered how often they saw each other and how much time they spent together.

 

“ … Jackson is going,” Stiles was saying. He paused and Lydia looked over at him. She’d completely tuned out and hadn’t realised he was even talking to her. “Were you listening to a word I just said?”

 

“Um,” Lydia answered. She decided to just be honest. “Not … really.”

 

“I heard Jackson is going to the beach too,” he repeated, rolling his eyes. She wasn’t sure if he was rolling his eyes at her or at the prospect of seeing Jackson. “Did you speak to him at all?”

 

“Why do you even care?” she asked, frowning at him.

 

Stiles looked across the Jeep at her with one eyebrow raised. She couldn’t tell what his reaction was, which was strange. Usually, he was very expressive.

 

“I don’t,” he replied finally, his voice flat, turning his attention back to the road. “I just hate that guy.”

 

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us,” Lydia answered. “And no, I didn’t speak to him. I’m not planning to either, if you were wondering.”

 

“I was,” Stiles told her. “The worst thing about it is how successful he is.”

 

“I know,” Lydia agreed. “An Armani model, right?”

 

He nodded.

 

“Jackass,” they both said simultaneously, then looked at each other in pleasant surprise. Not knowing what to make of what had just happened, they both looked away from each other. Stiles fiddled with the volume of the radio, drowning out any possibility of conversation for the rest of the short journey to the beach.

 

While the music played loudly, Lydia reflected on the reunion. She’d flown from New York to Beacon Hills to attend a reunion for forty-five minutes; she was just glad she hadn’t come to Beacon Hills solely for the reunion. She’d be feeling pretty pissed if she was, but then again … she was in Stiles’s Jeep. She wasn’t pissed at all.

 

Stiles pulled into the parking area reserved for the beach and killed the engine. Lydia got out of the Jeep and awkwardly reached the front at the exact same time as Stiles.

 

Malia pushed past them both and headed down to the beach, while Stiles and Lydia followed her. She was more equipped to know exactly where the others were.

 

She walked on ahead with a fast pace, soon leaving Stiles and Lydia lagging behind. Stiles shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and Lydia folded her arms across her chest as they walked. She felt weird and uncomfortable being completely alone with Stiles, and didn’t know what to say.

 

“Thanks for inviting me,” she said eventually, since he didn’t seem to be doing anything to break the silence. “Despite all the things I said to you earlier today.”

 

“No problem.”

 

She nodded, then tried again. “You’re forgiving.”

 

“Ah,” he answered, “only for some people.”

 

“Scott?”

 

Stiles cracked a smile. “Yeah. Scott.”

 

“And me,” she said, feeling brave. Feeling more like her old, bold self. “You’ve always been pretty forgiving towards me.”

 

She could tell that he was being careful with her words and her heart pounded as she wondered what he was going to say in response. She was just glad that he wasn’t Scott and couldn’t hear how fast her heart was beating.

 

“There was nothing to forgive, Lydia,” he said finally, sighing. “I got it. I got it then. I get it now.”

 

“You can’t mean that.”

 

“Well,” he said, “I do.”

 

“But …” She was lost for words. She shook her head. “But I saw how hurt you were in the hallways. I saw how confused you were. How could you forgive me? How could you _understand_?”

 

“You’d just lost your best friend,” Stiles said to her. He stopped to look at her and she found herself stopping too. She could see everybody else, camped out on the sand near the shore, but she didn’t want to move her feet towards them.

 

“That’s no excuse …”

 

“Of course it is,” he said. He shrugged. “If I lost Scott, I’d go crazy.”

 

“I saw how you were in high school,” Lydia told him. “Every time you looked at me, you looked so _angry._ You hadn’t forgiven me.”

 

“Does it matter?” Stiles asked. He started walking again and she sighed, before she hurried to catch up with him.

 

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

 

“We weren’t friends in our senior year, so does it matter if I was pissed at you or if I’d forgiven you then? No, because I’ve forgiven you now.”

 

“But you don’t _understand_ —”

 

He stopped again. Lydia sighed.

 

“I don’t understand?” he asked. “You really think that I don’t understand? We all lost Allison; we all mourned. We all found it difficult to carry on. And you couldn’t hang out with us anymore because it reminded you too much of her.”

 

“No,” She shook her head. “I couldn’t hang out with you anymore because you weren’t friends with us for _me_ ; you were friends with us for _her_.”

 

“That’s not true.”

 

“Of course it is, Stiles. But it’s okay — I accepted that a long time ago.”

 

“Hey,” He frowned at her, shaking his head ever so slightly. “You were our friend too. Maybe I should have … communicated that to you better. I didn’t want to lose you. You meant just as much to me as Allison did — if not … more.”

 

She smiled involuntarily. She stepped towards him, not believing that someone could care for her as much as Stiles did. He’d shown it time and time again, and she’d been an idiot to push him away when they were seventeen.

 

“Stiles …” she said. “I’m so sorry for how I treated you. I didn’t want to burden you with everything that I was going through.”

 

“You weren’t!”

 

“But it felt like I was,” Lydia said. “If I’d have known …”

 

She would have played it all so differently. She would’ve grown closer to Stiles, not further away. She would’ve gone to him for comfort and comforted him in return, rather than grieving by herself. She would have had someone to turn to. She would have known how to cope with her grief. She never would have met Matthew. Things could be so different. Maybe she wouldn’t be in this state at all, if she’d have chosen Stiles.

 

“I spent our entire senior year missing you,” Stiles said to her. “I wanted to —”

 

“Stiles! Lydia!” A voice interrupted them and they jumped apart, unaware of just how close they’d been to each other until that moment. They looked and saw Scott, waving to them and beckoning them over.

 

“We should …” Stiles began.

 

Disappointed but trying not to show it, Lydia nodded. “Yeah. We should.”

 

They both walked over to the group and sat down on the sand. Lydia found herself sitting beside Kira, who smiled at her encouragingly.

 

“Hey! You made it!” she said. “We were beginning to think you two would be talking all night.”

 

“Just catching up,” Lydia answered smoothly. Stiles sat on the other side of her, but she could tell he was itching to speak to Scott. She turned to him. “You can speak to Scott, you know.”

 

“Thank you for your permission.”

 

She rolled her eyes. “I’ve missed that sarcasm.”

 

His eyes danced mischievously. “I always knew that you loved it. You denied it and you pretended not to, but it was like I could _feel_ it.”

 

“I also _love_ how modest you are,” she continued, rolling her eyes again. “You really are humble.”

 

“Oh, thank you,” he replied. “I try.”

 

“On a serious note,” she continued, “I’m fine here. Don’t feel like you need to babysit me.”

 

“It isn’t babysitting, Lydia,” he blurted out, shaking his head. He looked amused. “I _want_ to sit with you.”

 

“You do?”

 

“Of course,” he answered. “You really don’t get it, do you?”

 

“Get what?”

  
At that moment, Scott called Stiles’s name from across the group of people. He glanced away. She wished to _God_ that Scott McCall would stop interrupting them at the worst possible times. It was getting ridiculous. Every time she started to feel her guard slip, or he almost admitted to something, or she almost confessed something, Scott popped up.

 

Maybe it was a good thing that Scott kept appearing.

 

She was too close to telling Stiles everything.

 

It wasn’t her fault. The way that he looked at her, she just wanted to be honest with him. She didn’t want the walls up around her anymore. She didn’t want to push everybody away.

 

Now, Stiles looked at her like he was waiting for her permission. She shrugged. “Go,” she told him, as firmly as possible.

 

He jumped to his feet, grinning at her, and practically tripped over himself in an effort to get to Scott. She watched as he clumsily launched himself onto the sand beside his best friend. She couldn’t help but smile at his general awkwardness, and was glad that he hadn’t changed in that way.

 

“So, Lydia,” Kira said from beside her, clearly making a contrived effort to talk to her. “What are you doing in New York?”

 

“Math,” Lydia answered. “Mostly. Data analysis, research, hypotheses testing … That kind of thing. What about you?”

 

“I’m a self-defence instructor on weekends and a nurse on weekdays,” she said.

 

“Wow,” Lydia was impressed. “That’s cool.”

 

“It’s okay,” Kira said, “I suppose I have an unfair disadvantage to the students in my class. Fighting comes naturally to me.”

 

“You can’t help that,” Lydia reminded her. “It’s great that you’re using it for good. I haven’t found a useful way to use these voices. They’re just … _there_.”

 

“Regularly?”

 

Lydia shrugged. “Sometimes. Less since leaving Beacon Hills.”

 

“Sure,” Kira said. Then she added, “You know, from what I remember, you used those voices for good. You saved a lot of people, Lydia.”

 

Lydia found herself looking across the circle at Stiles, who was laughing loudly at something Scott — and those kids she recognised from school, Liam and Mason, who weren’t really _kids_ anymore — was saying. She smiled at Kira’s words, but didn’t necessarily believe them.

 

“It’s a shame that you stopped being friends with them,” Kira said, noticing the way that Lydia’s gaze focused on them. Lydia looked back at her sharply. What, exactly, did Kira _know_?

 

“I had other things going on.”

 

“Of course!” Kira said quickly. “You mean Allison, right?”

 

“And other things,” Lydia replied, though she was lying. She turned to Kira, whose face was trusting. Would Kira really judge her if she just told her the truth? She wasn’t sure what was happening to her; she’d come back to Beacon Hills and now, suddenly, she wanted to tell everybody everything she’d been keeping quiet for the last ten years.

 

Kira nodded. She was a nurse. She was good at listening.

 

“I guess … they were friends with Allison first, not me, and I didn’t think it was fair to burden them with everything that _I_ was feeling over her death when they were both grieving too. I didn’t mean anything to them.”

 

“Are you kidding me? Lydia, they were so worried about you after Allison died,” Kira told her. “All they wanted to do was help.”

 

“And I pushed them away, I know,” she said. “But you don’t get it. I _meant_ to. I _wanted_ to. I didn’t want them to be my friends. It was too much.”

 

“It’s hard when someone dies,” Kira acknowledged, “but I’ve found that it gets easier if you let people in.”

 

Lydia thought about Kira’s words — they were so obvious. She knew Kira was absolutely right, but she still didn’t think she could talk to anybody about what was going on at New York, or why she’d been sent home to Beacon Hills. She wasn’t quite there yet.

 

“I know,” Lydia said. “I was so young. _She_ was so young.”

 

“She was.”

  

Just as Lydia thought this, Malia dropped down on the sand beside them. She’d changed her outfit on the way over to the beach, and wore cutoffs with a sweatshirt. Her short hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail and she smiled at the two women sitting in front of her.

 

“Where’s the alcohol?”

 

“Danny’s bringing it,” Kira said. “Calm down.”

 

“I came here for the alcohol,” Malia retorted, raising an eyebrow. “Anything to numb the pain of that reunion.”

 

“Malia, I’m right here,” Kira replied. “And you can’t even get drunk.”

 

“Even _you_ can admit that it sucked,” Malia said.

 

“That isn’t ... completely true. The gym looked great.” Lydia jumped in, as she felt bad for how direct Malia was being. Kira had planned most of the reunion and they’d all left after less than an hour. And she _had_ made Beacon Hills High’s gym look better than Lydia remembered it. That, at least, was something.

 

“Thanks, Lydia,” Kira said, smiling. She leaned back on her hands. “I think it went well. I’m not taking all of this —” She gestured around them —“personally.”

 

“So,” Malia said, turning to Lydia. “Can you hear dead people?”

 

“What?”

 

“Dead people,” she repeated, this time slowly and more pronounced. _Dead. Peo-ple_. “Like Allison. Did she ever speak to you?”

 

“It isn’t … sixth sense,” Lydia answered. “It’s just voices.”

 

“From not dead people?”

 

“I don’t know how it works,” Lydia replied, a little too sharply. “It just happens.”

 

“But —”

 

“Malia,” Kira interrupted, shaking her head. “Enough with the questions.”

 

“I’m just curious how it works — I’ve never met a banshee before,” Malia said, then added, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

 

Lydia shrugged. The funny thing was that she hadn’t. Lydia felt relaxed for the first time in a while; she leaned back in the same way Kira was, tilting her head up at the sky to search out the moon. It was getting dark now, getting closer to night-time, but she could see it faintly.

 

“This is kind of nice,” she said aloud, though it was mostly to herself. “Isn’t it?”

 

Kira nodded. “It is.”

 

“I can see Danny!” Malia cheered. She scrambled to her feet, kicking up sand as she jogged over to Danny and the crate of beer he’d brought along with him. Lydia smiled at it all, just as Stiles and Scott approached them and dropped down onto the sand in the space Malia had just vacated.

 

“You guys having fun?” Scott asked.

 

Lydia smiled. She caught Stiles looking at her. She smiled more.

 

“Yeah,” she said. “I’d forgotten how nice the beach is. We never came here during high school.”

 

“We were too busy fighting the supernatural to enjoy a beach day,” Scott joked.

 

She looked over at Scott, thinking about how much he’d been through, and she felt another jolt of guilt at how she’d treated him. They could have shared in their grief; they’d loved Allison the most. They could have grieved together, but she realised now that her supposedly selfless actions of leaving them and not overloading her own mourning onto them, she’d actually been selfish. She had no idea when Scott began to accept Allison was gone. She had no idea how he’d coped.

 

Kira got to her feet. “I’m getting a beer. Anyone?”

 

“Sure,” Stiles said.

 

“Make that two,” Lydia responded.

 

“Scott?”

 

“Not for me,” Scott answered, as Kira nodded and disappeared off to the crate, where Danny stood with Malia.

 

Scott turned to look at Lydia, smiling. “You having fun, Lydia?” 

 

She nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

 

She was being honest. She felt ... okay. It was  _nice_ sitting with Scott and Stiles, talking to Kira, even Malia she could cope with. It was just ... different to sit with people, talk to them, be friends with them. For the first time in a while, she kind of felt like things were improving.

 

“You’ve got to be _kidding_ me,” Stiles suddenly groaned, his eyes focused on something behind Lydia.

 

She turned around curiously and her eyes fell on Jackson, striding towards the group on the beach. She was mildly irritated, but Stiles seemed furious.

 

“Why is he here? He wasn’t invited!”

 

“This is a public place, Stiles,” Scott replied plainly. Lydia cracked a smile, but she could see Jackson getting closer and closer, and her stomach involuntarily twisted with nerves.

 

“I don’t really want to see him either,” she said.

 

Stiles looked at her. “Want to go for a walk? To avoid him, obviously.”

 

The thought of being alone with Stiles made her nervous, but she didn’t want to see Jackson. She got to her feet. “We’ll need to go now,” she said plainly, “otherwise we’ll never get away in time.”

 

Stiles got to his feet too. He beamed at her, that familiar, endearing smile she knew so well. She’d missed that smile over the years.

 

“Then let’s go,” he said.

 

Scott sat back, watching as they headed off together. _He_ didn’t particularly want to see Jackson Whittemore either, but it was clear that the invitation for a walk hadn’t been extended to him.

 

It didn’t bother him.

 

It was about time.

 

 

____________________________________________

 

 

“Tell me about your job.”

 

Lydia carried her boots underneath one arm, walking barefoot along the shoreline. The sand was getting everywhere. She’d balanced on Stiles as she unzipped her boots, then tucked them underneath her arm to hold them in place.

 

Then, they’d carried on walking: further and further away from Jackson. An unspoken agreement lay between them to put as much distance between them and him as possible.

 

“My job?” Lydia frowned at Stiles’s innocent — but still complex — question.

 

Did he want the short answer or the long answer? The short answer was something along the lines of, _I’m a mathematician at a research centre in New York. It has its good days and bad._ The longer, more complicated answer involved launching into an explanation of why she was here, in Beacon Hills, when she’d had no intention of being.

 

“Yeah, you know … Your job.”

 

She raised her eyebrow at him. “Were you trying for a sarcastic response?”

 

“I was considering it.”

 

“I’m glad you decided against it,” she informed him, hiding a smile behind her hair. “My job is … standard.”

 

“Really? Because I heard that you’re kind of a big deal in the math world — if such a thing exists. Got that Fields Medal under your belt yet?”

 

She shot him a look.

 

“Working on it,” she told him. “What about you? The FBI, huh?”

 

“How’d you know that?” he asked, then sighed. “Let me guess: Scott?”

 

“No,” she replied. She felt braver. Being alone with him wasn’t as frightening as it had seemed just forty minutes earlier when they’d first walked onto the beach. “Facebook.”

 

He looked at her, his mouth hanging open in surprise, and then grinned. “You looked me up?”

 

“No! It just … came up.”

 

“You’re such a liar,” he replied. His teasing warmed her cheeks and her insides all at the same time. “You totally looked me up on Facebook. Just admit it.”

 

“So what if I did?” she asked. “Did _you_ look _me_ up?”

 

“Absolutely not,” Stiles replied indignantly. Then, his smile broadened. “I Googled you.”

 

“You didn’t!”

 

  
“I did.”

 

She remembered the party at Stiles’s house just the night before — though it seemed like a lifetime ago now — and how Scott had paused before admitting that he’d Googled her to find out about her job. So, it hadn’t been Scott after all. He just hadn’t wanted to give away that _Stiles_ had been the curious one.

 

“Wow,” She shook her head. She gave him a reproachful look. “That’s really embarrassing.”

 

“Tell me about it,” he agreed, mock-seriously. She didn’t think it was possible to embarrass him over anything.

 

“I want to know about the FBI,” she said. “What’s it like there?”

 

“Well,” Stiles said, lowering his gaze, “I’d tell you, but I’d have to kill you. It’s classified information.”

 

She raised one eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

 

“No, it’s okay,” Stiles shrugged. “It’s ... not bad. No, you know what? That’s a lie. I’m just trying to sound cool — it’s freaking awesome. I get to do what I love everyday. You can’t say that _isn’t_ cool.”

 

She laughed. She liked when he sounded enthusiastic about things. It reminded her of their high school days, whenever they’d successfully figured something out — usually something that subsequently saved everybody’s asses — and he couldn’t help but get adorably, infectiously excited.

 

“You live in D.C., right?” she asked.

 

“Yeah,” he answered. “New York?”

 

She nodded. “Yeah.”

 

For a second — for a tiny, split second — a thought crossed her mind. _Long-distance would be really difficult._ But she shook her head, trying to clear that thought. Why was she even thinking about long-distance with Stiles? This didn’t _mean_ anything. They were just walking along the beach. As friends. She wasn’t misinterpreting anything.

 

He probably had a girlfriend anyway.

 

And she … Well, she had a messy relationship history.

 

She just had to remember that Stiles was, above all, a decent guy. He wasn’t after anything with her, he didn’t feel _that_ way about her. He was being nice. He was just trying to help her out in a situation where she didn’t want to come face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend.

 

“I’ve always wanted to see a show on Broadway,” Stiles told her.

 

“Really?”

 

“Well,” He shrugged. “Actually, I’ve always wanted to see _Wicked._ Maybe …”

 

She brightened. Just a little. “Maybe …?”

 

“If I’m ever in New York …”

 

Lydia laughed. “That sounds like fun, Stiles.”

 

“Okay,” he answered quickly, sounding relieved. “Great.”

 

“I don’t even know when I’m going back,” she told him, the thought coming to her and escaping her before she had a chance to stop it.

 

He looked at her. “You don’t?”

 

“No.”

 

“Well,” he said, “since we’re both sticking around this week, maybe we could … meet up. Go for lunch or something.”

 

She pursed her lips. “Are you asking me out?”

 

He narrowed his eyes at her, that funny half-smile appearing again. “Are you … saying yes?”

 

She wished she could. She _wished_ she could give into the temptation that was Stiles Stilinski. She imagined herself slotting neatly back into her life in Beacon Hills: her comfortable life. She could go out for dinner with Stiles and they could have a great time. She could flirt with him. She could ask him out again, for a second date.

 

But then what? She’d go back to New York and he’d go back to D.C. And that was the best-case scenario. The worst-case scenario involved her messy relationship history coming back and biting her on the ass.

 

“Scott could come too,” she suggested, breaking eye contact with him from the pain and — truthfully — awkwardness of it all. She hated how he hesitated. She could _feel_ how hurt he was, how surprised he was. He’d thought things were going well; she knew, because she had too. He wasn’t sure if he’d misread her signals and she wanted to scream at him _You haven’t! You haven’t!_ but she couldn’t.

 

“We’re both leaving …” she continued, when he didn’t reply.

 

“No,” Stiles said, “no, that’s, um, exactly what I was thinking too. You, me, and … Scott. Like how things used to be.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

He nodded. He shot her a reassuring look. “Yeah.”

 

“Good,” she answered. “Dinner.”

 

“Dinner?”

 

This time, she nodded. She was trying to repair things just a little. “Tomorrow evening?”

 

Stiles seemed to consider it. Every second that she waited, her nerves increased. She hadn’t been out for dinner with a man—let alone two men—in months. She’d always worried about what might happen if she did.

 

“Okay,” he replied finally. “As long as Scott’s free too. If not, another day.”

 

“Of course.”

 

He stopped walking and she stopped too, turning back to face down the beach in the direction they’d walked from. She could barely see the group of people all sitting in a circle, chatting and milling around. She could just about make out a few figures in the distance.

 

“I think we’ve put enough distance between us and Jackson,” Stiles said. “Do you want to sit?”

 

She thought about suggesting they walk back to the group. Maybe Jackson was there, but she’d be in the safety of sitting among a group of people. She could talk to Kira, or even Malia, and avoid any personal conversations with Scott and Stiles.

 

Or, she could sit down on the sand with Stiles and talk. Talk like they used to. Talk like they could never run out of things to say. Talk like they couldn’t get their words out fast enough.

 

She knew which one was more risky.

 

She knew which one would be verging on dangerous.

 

She smiled at him.

 

“Yeah,” she answered. She dropped her shoes onto the sand and dropped down gracefully beside them.

 

“Let’s sit.”

 

She saw as his eyes lit up. His arm brushed against hers as he dropped down clumsily next to her, and he looked across at her to smile.


	7. Absolutely Not A Date

“So,” Noah Stilinski said, peering his head around the door to Stiles’s childhood bedroom. “Are you almost ready for your date with Lydia?”

 

“It’s not a date.”

 

The Sheriff frowned, confused. “I don’t understand, son.”

 

“Scott’s coming too.”

 

“Oh,” Noah answered. “I see.”

 

“So,” Stiles summarised, straightening out his second favourite plaid shirt, pulling at the collar as he looked at his reflection in the mirror. “Not a date.”

 

“Well, okay,” Noah replied. He waited for a few seconds, watching as Stiles looked around the room for his sneakers. “Out of curiosity, do you _want_ it to be a date?”

 

Stiles straightened up and looked at his father. He’d been trying not to think about his disappointment regarding the fast approaching three-way dinner; instead, he planned to use it as an opportunity to speak to Lydia and get to know her a little bit better. Even with Scott there. Besides, he could probably just ignore Scott. He didn’t need to catch up with him, after all.

 

“I don’t blame her for not wanting it to be a date,” he said aloud, instead of specifically answering his father’s question. “She just got back in town; she doesn’t come back often. She doesn’t want to get asked out on a date the same day she comes home by some guy she hasn’t seen in years.”

 

Noah nodded slowly. Then he said, “You didn’t answer my question, Stiles.”

 

“It doesn’t matter what I want, Dad,” Stiles said to him, shrugging. He located his shoes and sat down on the bed, slipping them on and reaching down to tie the laces. “This is what _she_ wants.”

 

Noah smiled. “I remember you first coming home from school in the third grade, just after you’d met Lydia for the first time. You were so excited. Do you know what you said to me?”

 

“I was eight years old, Dad,” Stiles reminded him. “No, I don’t remember.”

 

“You said to me, ‘Dad, I met the one today. She’s the one. I just know it.’ You told me that you’d broken your pencil in half by accident and this girl sitting next to you had rolled her eyes, then handed you a new one. Just like that. You were a goner.”

 

Stiles wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “Things change. I haven’t seen this girl in years.”

 

“And, of course, I remember how hurt you were when she stopped being friends with you boys in your last year of school,” the Sheriff added knowingly.

 

“Well,” Stiles said, “she was going through a lot that year. It’s no big deal. It’s all water under the bridge. Way in the past.”

 

“You always wanted to save her,” the Sheriff said, smiling. “I’m glad you’ve finally got your chance to show her how much you care about her.”

 

“Dad, please,” Stiles rolled his eyes. “You make it sound like I’ve been pining over her for years.”

 

The Sheriff chuckled. “If the shoe fits.”

 

Stiles began to reply, but the Sheriff had left the room, laughing to himself as he walked down the hallway of their house. Stiles shook his head, refusing to rise to his father’s taunts. It wasn’t like he’d been waiting for Lydia. He’d dated Malia _seriously._ They’d been in a serious, long-term relationship, and he’d loved her. Since Malia, he’d dated other women. Nothing serious, nothing lasting more than a few months, but he’d still _dated._

 

He grabbed his wallet and shoved it into his back pocket, checking his reflection to make sure he looked okay for the non-date one last time, before he left his room and jogged down the stairs.

 

They were all meeting at the restaurant, since they were coming from different directions. Stiles had offered to pick Lydia up on his way, but she’d declined and he’d assumed it was because that was too date-like. The restaurant was close to Stiles’s house anyway, so in the end he chose to walk. It was a light, warm summer’s evening and there was a bounce in his step as he went on his way.

 

He reached the restaurant in just fifteen minutes and — thankfully — hadn’t even broken a sweat. Nodding jovially at the guy on the host’s stand — he thought he recognised him from the reunion the previous night, but couldn’t be sure — he explained that they had a table booked for three under Stilinski, and the host directed him to the table.

 

Then, he saw her.

 

She was already there, waiting for him. She looked nervous and nothing like the Lydia he’d once known, who had exuded confidence in every way and had the most convincing indifferent expression he’d ever encountered.

 

Then, she saw him. Her expression changed from nervous to confident, smiling up at him in greeting. He thanked the host and sat down across from her, smiling back.

 

“Hey,” he said.

 

“I got here early,” she explained. “I was getting worried that you weren’t coming.”

 

“To our non-date?” he asked. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

 

Lydia’s smile grew. “Well, Scott isn’t here yet.”

 

“So, right now, it’s a date?”

 

“Stiles,” She leaned forward, closer to him. “This is absolutely not a date.”

 

“Okay.”

 

“I mean that.”

 

“I know.”

 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why do I get the impression that we’re not on the same page here?”

 

“Lydia,” He leaned forwards too, challenging her. “We are. Trust me. Scott’s going to get here any minute and the date part of our non-date will absolutely be over.”

 

She leaned back and sighed. “Even _this_ part of the evening isn’t a date. Just so we’re clear.”

 

“Crystal,” he responded, just as his phone started vibrating in his pocket. He dug it out and showed her the screen. “Scott.”

 

“Answer it,” Lydia told him. “Ask him if he’s close.”

 

He obeyed her orders, answering the phone. “Hey, man. Where are you? I’m getting hungry and Lydia’s getting irritable.”

 

She shot him a look, but he could tell she was fighting back a smile.

 

“Yeah, that’s the problem,” Scott said on the other end of the phone, “there’s been an emergency at work. I can’t come.”

 

“An emergency?”

 

“Complications with one of my patients,” Scott told him, sounding distracted. “I need to stay with him to make sure he pulls through the night. It’s touch and go right now.”

 

Stiles looked at Lydia, knowing she wouldn’t take the news well. He might as well pack up his things and go home; there was no way she would stay if she knew Scott couldn’t make it.

 

“It’s okay,” Stiles said eventually, “go save another cat.”

 

“It’s a dog,” Scott told him.

 

“A dog, then,” Stiles answered. “I hope he’s okay.”

 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Scott promised. “I hope the date goes well.”

 

Stiles hung up the phone hastily. Lydia was watching him, her eyes narrowed, waiting.

 

“So,” Stiles began. “He can’t make it.”

 

Lydia didn’t look surprised. “Is that so?”

 

“You don’t believe me,” he said, smiling at her. “You think that we planned this.”

 

“No,” she answered, “I think that Scott planned this.”

 

“You think he planned his patient getting sick?”

 

“I _think_ that there _is_ no patient.”

 

“Well,” Stiles scratched underneath his chin thoughtfully, “that is another … possibility. And it makes more sense.”

 

“We’ve been set up,” Lydia confirmed.

 

“I guess you’ll be going, then?” he guessed. “With Scott’s absence, this has a real risk of becoming a date.”

 

She squinted her eyes in thought, lifting her chin up, then shrugged. “I’m too hungry to leave and I drove all the way here.”

 

“It’s like ten minutes —”

 

“It’s still not a date,” she told him sharply, then relaxed a little, “but we’re staying.”

 

He looked across the table at her, feeling that little spark between them. He’d missed her teasing and taunting, the way his heart raced when he looked at her, the way he could feel them falling back into how things had once been between them.

 

Oh, man.

 

This was not supposed to happen.

 

He was not supposed to be looking across the table, remembering all the reasons why he’d loved Lydia Martin when they were eighteen.

 

He was in deep, _deep_ trouble.

____________________________________________

 

 

Lydia stopped the car and glanced across at Stiles, who was sitting in the passenger seat of her Mom’s car. She cut the engine and they sat in silence for a few seconds, the radio on low volume between them.

 

“In the least date-like possible, I had a good time tonight,” he said, being careful. She smiled at him. She’d slowly been coming round to his “non-date” jokes through the night. He could tell.

 

“So did I,” she said finally, leaning her head back against the headrest.

 

“Thanks for giving me a ride home.”

 

“Of course,” she replied. He wondered why she’d cut the engine. She was only supposed to be dropping him off at his house. But then she said, “Can I come in?”

 

At first, he’d thought he’d misheard her.

 

“Stiles. Can I come in?” she repeated.

 

“Um, yes, yeah, _yes_ ,” he said emphatically, clumsily undoing his seat-belt and opening his door as fast as he could.

 

He tried to remember the state of his bedroom and how he’d left it — had he picked up the three discarded shirts he’d thrown on the floor when choosing his outfit for dinner? — before shaking his head. Lydia wouldn’t want to go into his _bedroom._ They were twenty-eight years old, they were _adults._ They wouldn’t be sneaking off to his bedroom to hook up. They wouldn’t be hooking up. Period.

 

Lydia removed the key from the engine and got out of the car, following him to the front door of his dad’s house. He unlocked the door and opened it, flicking on the lights so they could find their way.

 

“It’s just as I remember it,” she said, running a hand over a photo frame on a unit in the entryway. The photo was of Malia, Stiles, Kira and Scott on their senior graduation day.

 

He wondered how she felt, looking at it. She picked it up. “This is a great photo.”

 

He pushed the door shut behind them. “I spent all day working up the courage to ask you if you wanted a photo together.”

 

She looked at him, frowning. “You did?”

 

“Yeah,” He nodded. “But you disappeared after the ceremony. I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

 

“I went home,” she told him.

 

He nodded. That made sense.

 

“You want a coffee or anything?”

 

“No thanks,” she said. “I shouldn’t stay long.”

 

“Right,” he answered. “You okay, Lydia?”

 

“Yeah. Why?”

 

“Just that you’re … kind of holding onto that photo a little tight,” he said, noticing how her knuckles were turning white with the strength of her grip. Noticing this as well, she relaxed her grip and placed it back on the counter, smiling embarrassedly.

 

“Sorry,” she said quietly. “I just feel like I missed out.”

 

“Senior year was … completely boring,” he assured her. “College stress, finals stress, supernatural stress. The usual.”

 

Lydia cracked a smile. “The supernatural. I haven’t missed that.”

 

“No?”

 

“Not at all.”

 

“I don’t know,” Stiles said. “Life is kind of boring without the constant threat of imminent death, don’t you think?”

 

She fixed him with a look. “Not really.”

 

“Just me, then.”

 

Without another word, she walked over to the couch and dropped onto it, so effortlessly and like she belonged there. He followed her wordlessly, sitting down beside her, but not too close in case she thought he was making a move and freaked out.

 

“You really miss the supernatural stuff?” she asked.

 

“Well, yeah,” he answered, shrugging. “All that stuff … it was my calling. It was what we were good at — saving the town, figuring out the puzzles and the riddles.”

 

“You do that in your job though, surely.”

 

He shrugged. He couldn’t find the words to tell her that he’d enjoyed the supernatural stuff so much in high school because it meant hanging out with her. He loved his job and he still loved solving the puzzles, but Lydia had been a way better — more interesting, more intelligent and, frankly, more beautiful — partner than his current one.

 

“Maybe it was the company,” he said carefully, raising his eyes to meet hers. “Everyone together.”

 

She nodded slowly, but her expression had changed. “Right. You mean … like, Scott, Kira and Malia.”

 

“Well, sure,” he conceded, “but also —”

 

“Tell me about the supernatural things you faced _after_ I …” She shook her head, pursing her lips in thought. “After I clocked off.”

 

He looked at her. “Clocked off?”

 

“Fine.” She stopped to roll her eyes and let out a heavy, elongated sigh. “Ditched you. Ignored you. Stopped being friends with you.”

 

Stiles smiled. “Let me see, we came across some mermaids, fairies, a few leprechauns …”

 

“Shut up.”

 

“Okay, okay. Unfortunately, there were no leprechauns.”

 

“You’re kidding.”

 

This time, he rolled his eyes at her, but good-naturedly and filled with an elation he couldn’t describe. She was opening up! She was loosening up! He didn’t want to do anything that might jinx it.

 

“No, I don’t know — alphas; Gerard Argent being an asshole; genetic chimeras. Usual stuff. What did _you_ do in senior year?”

 

“I applied for college,” Lydia told him, “I started studying Mandarin.”

 

“You did?”

 

She shrugged. “I had some time to kill.”

 

“Sure,” Stiles said. “What else would you do with your free time?”

 

“Mostly,” she said, “I missed hanging out with you guys.”

 

Stiles’s tone softened and he smiled at her — a real, soft smile, rather than the teasing smiles he’d been shooting her way all evening. “You did?”

 

She nodded. “Yeah. I did.”

 

Stiles wondered if he should tell her the truth. He wondered if he should just blurt it out, because surely this moment was as good as any. He could just say: _Lydia, we missed you, too. But I especially did. And I never stopped thinking and worrying about you. I was so, so worried about you …_

 

But instead, he said, “You want to look at my yearbook?”

 

“You still have it?”

 

He nodded, pushing himself off the couch. “It’s in my room.”

 

To his surprise, Lydia pushed herself up from the couch too and followed him through to his bedroom. He became self-conscious of the state of the room, his stomach twisting with nerves as he flicked on the light and surveyed the damage. It was, for the most part, clean.

 

He rummaged underneath the bed for the storage boxes his dad had packed tons of things away in. Some of them were important — like Stiles’s baseball bat, his participation award he’d received for lacrosse and a few other pieces of memorabilia — and others weren’t so. He was pretty sure that the pencil Lydia had given to him in third grade was in one of those boxes somewhere.

 

He located his yearbook, dragging it out from the box and producing it like he’d located a winning lottery ticket. He turned around to find Lydia, to spot her over by the window. She seemed deep in thought and he found himself watching her for a few seconds, her eyes roaming the room, flickering back and forth like she was taking everything in.

 

“It’s different,” she announced finally, lifting her eyes to meet his.

 

He nodded, clutching onto the yearbook like it was a lifeline. Something had changed. Something had shifted in the air between them, but he didn’t quite know or understand what.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “After I moved out for college, my dad turned it into a spare room.”

 

“Your bed used to be over there,” She pointed to the other side of the room. Then, she looked to the left of her. “And the board of investigations here, next to me.”

 

“Yeah,” he said again, scratching underneath his chin thoughtfully, “well. Pops didn’t want all of my stuff everywhere.”

 

“It’s just …” She seemed lost, like his room changing had really affected her. “Different.”

 

“You remember it,” he said to her softly. He was touched that she’d remembered. He was touched that she held a clear picture in her mind of the room and, possibly, all those moments they’d shared between them.

 

Lydia looked at him from across the room. He was suddenly aware of the great distance between them: she was as far away from him as she could possibly be.

 

“Stiles,” she began slowly, “that year — junior year — it was important to me. I don’t want you to think that … it wasn’t.”

 

He felt a flicker of hope. “It was?”

 

She nodded. “I just … acted like it wasn’t, so it wasn’t hard. It was still hard, but … I don’t know. Our friendship meant a lot to me.”

 

A smile spread across his face.

 

“And I’m sorry that I messed things up for us,” she continued, then widened her eyes. “For our friendship. I messed things up for our friendship.”

 

He couldn’t find the words to tell her that he didn’t care. He didn’t care that she’d stopped talking to them eleven years ago — all that mattered was that she was here, now, in his room, leaning against his desk, looking at him. A decade ago didn’t matter to him. All that mattered to him was right now and the flicker of hope inside of him that this could turn into something more, something that it could have — but didn’t — become eleven years earlier.

 

He opened his mouth, wondering how to say that without sounding weird, before she interjected.

 

“So,” she said, clearing her throat, “I know about your job. Tell me about your life in D.C.”

 

He was starting to recognise that when she was nervous, she changed the subject. He rolled with it. The last thing he wanted to do was make her uncomfortable.

 

“What do you want to know?”

 

She straightened up into a standing position, then walked over to him. Gingerly and like she was waiting for his permission, she sat down on the bed beside him, then smiled.

 

“Apartment, pets, girlfriend, friends. Anything you like.”

 

“Small, cramped, but cheap,” he answered, “a cat that comes and goes whenever he pleases; non-existent; some in D.C., mostly on my team but a couple of guys from my local bar.”

 

“Non-existent,” she repeated, narrowing her eyes at him thoughtfully. “No girlfriend?”

 

He shook his head. “Nope.”

 

“Why not?”

 

He thought about using his usual excuse — _I’m too busy with work, there’s no time for a girlfriend or anything serious_ — but then changed his mind. Why shouldn’t he just be honest?

 

“I haven’t met anyone I’ve cared enough about to go into anything serious,” he told her, unable to meet her eyes. “I haven’t dated around or anything, but that’s mostly because … I’ve just …”

 

“Just what?”

 

“I’ve been hung up on someone for a while — like, a long time,” he told her, finally lifting his eyes to meet hers. She looked at him, her eyes still narrowed and thoughtful, her lips parted open slightly.

 

“Oh,” she said finally.

 

“So,” he continued, “I just … never met anyone I cared about as much.”

 

He waited for what felt like _forever._

 

Then, finally, Lydia said, “I think I should go.”

 

He felt his heart plummet. “Go?”

 

“Yes,” She got to her feet. “Thanks for tonight. I had fun.”

 

“Wait, Lydia —”

 

“But it’s getting kind of late,” she continued, ignoring him. She headed towards the door to his room, and he had no choice but to follow after her helplessly. She jogged down the stairs, all the time chattering on about how she needed to get home because she’d told her mom she’d be home by a certain time, and Stiles followed after her. He was unable to get a word in. She wouldn’t listen.

 

She stopped to grab her purse and her car keys, then spun around to face him when she reached the door.

 

“Thanks for a lovely evening,” she said, sounding sincere.

 

He noticed that her hand was positioned on the handle of the front door, clearly ready to make her escape, and he found himself feeling more and more disappointed.

 

“I guess I’ll see you around this week?” he asked, sounding hopeful and pathetic even to his own ears. He could only imagine what she thought of him, considering she was making a beeline to get out of the house.

 

“Sure,” she replied, nodding. “See you around, Stiles.”

 

She opened the door and hurried across the porch. He found himself watching her go, helpless, as she got into her car, slammed the door and drove away all within a matter of minutes.

 

He’d come as close as he could for telling her just how he’d felt for as long as he could remember, and she’d freaked out.

 

The question was: where the hell did he go from here?


	8. A Terrible, Terrible Misunderstanding

Lydia’s cheeks were flushed pink as she drove along the long, straight roads of Beacon Hills back to her house. She felt so _stupid_ , and that was why she’d been forced to make such a quick exit from Stiles’s house.

 

She wasn’t used to feeling stupid, and she hated it.

 

She also couldn’t deny that strange, sinking feeling inside of her when Stiles had said he was still hung up on someone. For a split second, she’d been hopeful about what he was going to say. He didn’t have a girlfriend _because_ …

 

But then he’d told her he was still hung up on someone and had been for a long time. There was only one person that could be, and the thoughts clouded over her mind. She was angry with herself for letting her guard down, even if it had just been for the evening.

 

But sitting with Stiles at dinner, it _felt_ like a date, no matter how many times she tried to remind herself — sometimes aloud — that it wasn’t. And she didn’t even know why she’d asked if she could come inside, or followed him to his bedroom when he’d suggested finding their yearbook. She hadn’t wanted to see the yearbook — she knew exactly what it would contain: candids of Stiles and Malia with their arms looped around each other, smiling into the camera, or in class together, or at lunch together; and a memorial page for all the students the school had lost that year, including a photo of Allison’s black-and-white, smiling face. She’d just wanted an excuse to follow him into his room and see what had become of it, because she could remember it so clearly in her mind.

 

She’d been letting herself fall slowly all night. She’d allowed herself to get caught up in Stiles’s endearing, lopsided smile, the way his eyes focused on her when she was speaking, and the way he’d tried all night to make her laugh. She’d allowed herself to notice how his eyes crinkled at the sides when he smiled; how he had asked her questions about her job all evening, even though she knew it was the most boring job on earth to most people.

 

All for him to turn around and say that he hadn’t dated anyone because he was still hung up on someone.

 

After all these years, he was _still_ hung up on Malia Tate.

 

It was even more obvious now.

 

It was the reason why he’d been so eager to come back for the reunion, the person he’d wanted to see the most. She knew they were still in touch. It was more likely that he was still into her if they’d remained friends all these years. Maybe _Malia_ had broken up with _him_ in their senior year and he’d been distraught over it.

 

And now, he’d all but confirmed it.

 

Not for the first time, Lydia wished she had Scott’s ability to listen to heartbeats. There were a few questions she’d ask Stiles that she desperately wanted to know the answer to.

 

She killed the engine as soon as she pulled into the drive, leaning right into the steering wheel and letting out a mumbled groan. When she finally mustered the energy to get out of the car and go inside, she found her mother still awake — it was getting late; she hadn’t realised just how many hours she’d spent talking to Stiles — and waiting up for her.

 

Lydia dropped her purse onto the couch in the living room and collapsed down beside it, crossing one leg over the other at the ankle.

 

Natalie Martin lowered her reading glasses and closed the book she was in the middle of.

 

“Hi, honey,” she said. “How was the date?”

 

“It was absolutely _not_ a date,” Lydia said, looking away from her mom. “That much was obvious.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“It was never supposed to be a date, Mom.”

 

“Then why do you look so disappointed?” Natalie asked.

 

Lydia looked up, frowning. She was _embarrassed._ She was also a little annoyed with herself for allowing her guard down for a few hours, especially when she’d spent so long and tried so hard to build it up in the first place. But was she disappointed?

 

No, she wasn’t.

 

She was absolutely dejected.

 

She had no idea how it had happened. It had all been going so well, and for just a second she’d allowed herself to imagine what life might be like if she could end up with Stiles Stilinski.

 

Only for him to still be in love with Malia Tate.

 

“He’s …” Lydia shrugged. “He’s not over someone.”

 

“I thought it wasn’t a date.”

 

“Mom,” Lydia sighed. “It’s complicated.”

 

Natalie got to her feet. “It doesn’t sound complicated to me. It sounds like you were on a date with Stiles, and you liked it. Are you going to be okay, honey?”

 

Lydia nodded. “Of course.”

 

“I’m heading to bed,” Natalie said, leaning forwards and kissing Lydia’s forehead.

 

Lydia was deep in thought and barely noticed her mom leaving the room, only looking up and calling out goodnight when she heard Natalie creaking up the stairs.

 

For ten minutes, she was lost in thought.

 

Thinking, of course, about Stiles. Stiles, who had been her friend despite her craziness and banshee-ness in high school. Stiles, who had always, _always_ been there for her and helped her when she’d needed it. Stiles, who had immediately forgiven her for the way she’d stopped speaking to him in high school. She’d stopped being friends with him before for all the wrong, selfish reasons.

 

She couldn’t do that again.

 

So, Lydia did what she did best: she came up with a solution. She hatched a plan. If Stiles was still hung up over Malia, she would fix things.

 

She was going to get them back together, and it would solve everything.

 

____________________________________________

 

Lydia woke up with a jerk on her mother’s couch.

 

It was morning. She could hear the radio in the kitchen, playing an old song from the ‘80s. She could distantly hear her mom, singing along, so she dragged herself off the couch and headed to the kitchen.

 

“Good morning, honey,” Natalie said, sliding a cup of coffee across the island counter to Lydia. “I see you didn’t quite make it to bed last night.”

 

“I was …” Lydia took a seat on one of the bar stools, smoothing down her hair from where sleeping on the couch had messed it up. “I was figuring a few things out. I guess I got tired and fell asleep.”

 

“Looks that way,” Natalie commented. “What are you going to do today?”

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Maybe you should see Stiles,” Natalie said. “I’m sure he’d like an explanation for last night and why you ran out on him.”

 

“How do you know that?”

 

She smiled. “He called this morning. He thought something might have happened.” A pause. “He was worried about you.”

 

Lydia sighed loudly. It was so unfair. Stiles was a good guy. He was the first guy that she could see herself liking in forever, but he deserved to be happy and if Malia made him happy, Lydia was going to make that happen — or at the very least, speed the process up a little.

 

“I’ll speak to him soon,” Lydia said distantly.

 

Her plan was to find Malia first.

 

So, she got dressed, she combed her hair and she applied make-up. She smoothed her dress down when she stood up and slipped on a light leather jacket. She grabbed her purse and left the house, calling goodbye to her mother as the front door shut behind her.

 

She considered taking her mom’s car, but decided against it. It was a great day. The sun shone overhead and there were very few clouds in the sky, but it wasn’t stiflingly hot.

 

A light breeze tugged at the ends of Lydia’s hair and she was glad for the jacket she’d put on.

 

Malia wasn’t at her house.

 

Lydia knocked loudly for five minutes. When nobody answered, she tiptoed around the back of the house, feeling like she was committing a crime, peering behind her every few seconds in fear that a cop would spring up behind her and arrest her for breaking and entering.

 

But Malia wasn’t in the back yard either, and the house looked dark and empty. Lydia admitted defeat, but not for long. She reached for her phone and called Kira, who had given Lydia her number even though Lydia hadn’t thought, at the time, she’d ever need to use it.

 

Thankfully, Kira picked up.

 

“Hello?”

 

“Kira?” Lydia asked. “It’s me — uh, it’s Lydia. Lydia Martin.”

 

“Lydia?” Kira sounded confused, which Lydia had been expecting. “Is everything okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Lydia answered. “I was just … I was looking for Malia. I didn’t know if you’d seen her.”

 

“Not recently,” Kira admitted, then added, “But she works in a cafe some afternoons, the cafe is downtown. You might catch her today.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“It’s on Main Street,” Kira told her, “just after the bookstore. You can’t miss it.”

 

“You’re a lifesaver.”

 

“What’s … going on?” Kira asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

 

Lydia felt proud of herself as she said, “I’m fixing things.”

 

She knew that Kira wouldn’t understand what was going on or what she meant, but Lydia didn’t want to tell anyone about her plan to fix Stiles and Malia up with each other.

 

She didn’t want anyone to tell her any way that the plan might not work, because she was adamant that she was going to fix things between them.

 

If she did, Stiles would be happy, she would be 100% forgiven for their senior year, and she would have no choice but to get over this weird little thing she had for him where she kept imagining what it might be like to be with him.

 

She was sure that, once she successfully reunited Stiles and Malia, she would realise that she was only feeling nostalgic for high school or something like that. She didn’t actually have _feelings_ for Stiles. She hadn’t seen him in ten years!

 

But he had been kind to her despite everything, so she should be kind to him back. It was the least she could do.

 

She thanked Kira for her help before she set off for the cafe Kira had talked about. Once on Main Street, she scanned the street for the bookstore, realising just how long it had been since she’d last been in Beacon Hills. She couldn’t even remember the exact location of the store, but once she located it, she found the cafe easily.

 

Lydia approached the cafe with a bounce in her step, stopping in the window to look inside. She wanted to spot Malia before going in, otherwise she’d have to go through the pretence of getting a table and actually ordering something.

 

But when she scanned the cafe through the window, she saw something that she hadn’t expected.

 

She could see Malia inside the cafe, but she wasn’t alone.

 

She was with another guy.

 

She was _kissing_ another guy.

 

Lydia turned away from the window, flushing with embarrassment that she’d witnessed such a private moment between Malia and somebody. She didn’t recognise him — but, most importantly, he wasn’t _Stiles._

 

Which meant, unless Malia was dating someone else because she didn’t realise Stiles was interested, this was a serious flaw in Lydia’s plan to reunite the couple.

 

She paced outside the cafe for a few minutes, working through the problem in her mind to find a solution. She could march in there and tell Malia the truth _and_ her plan, then see how Malia reacted. But what if Malia didn’t feel the same way about Stiles? What if she inadvertently caused a problem in their friendship?

 

As it turned out, Lydia didn’t have time to do anything.

 

Her phone, which she’d tucked into the pocket of her purse, started vibrating against her leg. She ducked out of the way of the window, just in case Malia looked outside and spotted her lurking outside her workplace, before she answered the phone call.

 

It was, of course, Stiles.

 

She couldn’t avoid him any longer.

 

“Hey, Stiles,” she said.

 

“Hey,” he answered, sounding dubious. “You okay?”

 

“Uh-huh,” she replied, though hearing his voice caused her stomach to lurch and twist from nerves. She vividly recalled running out of his house the night before and she knew she should apologise to him for her strange behaviour.

 

“Look,” she began, “I just wanted —”

 

“So,” he started at the same time, “I called because —”

 

They both stopped, embarrassed.

 

“Sorry,” they said in unison.

 

Lydia cleared her throat and waited a beat, waiting to see if he would continue. When he didn’t, she said, “You go first.”

 

“No, please,” he said. “You.”

 

“I’m sorry for acting kind of … strange last night,” she said. “It was just …”

 

It was just _what_? She’d realised that he had feelings for someone else and she’d been disappointed? She’d felt stupid? There was no way she could explain it to him without revealing that she’d been thinking — _hoping_ — that she was the reason he didn’t have a girlfriend. Which, she realised now, was completely stupid anyway. But the thought had, admittedly, crossed her mind.

 

“I don’t know. I guess I was just tired.”

 

He was quiet for a second. She felt irritated with herself for giving such a terrible excuse.

 

He deserved better than that, but she couldn’t tell him the _real_ reason why she’d left so abruptly.

 

“It’s … okay,” he said finally, though it clearly wasn’t.

 

“So,” She was desperate to change the subject. “Why did you call?”

 

“I was worried about you,” he told her. “I was wondering where you are.”

 

She glanced around her, knowing she couldn’t tell him which cafe she was standing outside of. “I’m in town. I’m heading back to my house now. Actually … I need to tell you something.”

 

“You do?”

 

She swallowed. She _had_ to tell him about Malia. “Yeah.”

 

“Okay, actually, I need to talk to you about something, too,” he said, sounding curious. “I’ll just wait here for you.”

 

“You’re at my house?”

 

“Yup,” he answered, “standing right outside it.”

 

Lydia’s stomach sunk. She wanted to see him, she wanted to talk to him, but she knew she was going to have a difficult conversation with him. He clearly didn’t know about Malia and who she was with. Would she have to break it to him? Would she have to tell him that the woman he was in love with was with someone else? Did he already know?

 

Her heart broke for Stiles.

 

He’d come back to Beacon Hills for someone, for _Malia_ , and she didn’t feel the same way.

 

“Okay,” she said. “Hold tight. I’ll be there in ten.”

 

And she headed off home, dreading arriving at her house every single step of the way.


	9. Who The Hell Are You?

Stiles paced the driveway of Lydia’s mom’s house, attempting to plan in his head _just_ what he was going to say to her.

 

He’d woken up earlier that morning feeling a little unsettled and extremely embarrassed. He’d been so close to telling Lydia how he felt — how he’d _always_ felt — about her, and she’d left the house in such a hurry, he could only guess that she’d figured it out. And then she’d left. Which meant, obviously, that she didn’t feel the same way.

 

But, being Stiles, he couldn’t just leave it.

 

He had to fix it.

 

He’d pushed his embarrassment deep, deep down and tried not to think about it, before he’d called her. She hadn’t picked up. Her mom had told him that she was still sleeping, which he thought was probably an excuse because Lydia always got up earlier than him, so he’d waited a few hours before trying again.

 

He was just going to talk to her.

 

That was his plan.

 

He was going to tell her that he was sorry he’d freaked her out, and that he understood why. She’d loved Allison and she’d lost her. There was a real possibility that Lydia had recently lost someone _else_ she cared about, and that was why she was back in Beacon Hills and still intent on pushing him away.

 

The more he thought about it, the more his mind explored the possibilities. He decided that Lydia had lost someone close to her. She was, so it would seem, afraid to love and be loved. She pushed people away because she was scared she’d lose them — that was his decision.

 

As for the person she’d lost, he didn’t see how it could be a family member. Lydia’s mother was still alive and well. Her father had disappeared years ago, but Stiles’s dad would have told him if something had happened to him. The same went for any member of Lydia’s family, or anyone from Beacon Hills who Lydia cared deeply about.

 

Which meant it was someone she’d known either in college, or in her new, fancy mathematician New York life. It could be another friend, or maybe they’d been more. Maybe she’d been with someone. Maybe he’d died.

 

He was just spitballing and he knew he could be way off the mark, but it was like he was putting together an investigation board in his mind and slowly wrapping red thread around each point he didn’t yet understand.

 

It _had_ to be what she wanted to speak to him about. It had to be.

 

He _had_ to talk to her.

 

And then, finally, just as he’d started going around in circles — literally and figuratively — trying to figure out the answer, she appeared. She was wearing sunglasses, so he couldn’t figure out her expression. He’d told himself that the moment he saw her, he’d be able to know exactly what was going on, but maybe he didn’t know her as well as he thought because he had no idea.

 

“Lydia,” he said. “Hey.”

 

“Hi,” she answered. She gestured to the door. “You want to go inside? My mom’s out.”

 

He nodded. “Sure.”

 

He followed her up the front steps to the door and she pushed open the front door, leading the way into the house. They walked through to the kitchen and she poured them both a cup of coffee in silence.

 

He didn’t know where to start.

 

“So,” he said, “what did you want to talk to me about?”

 

“You go first,” she told him. “You said you had something to talk to me about too.”

 

He nodded. “I think I know what’s going on with you.”

 

Lydia frowned. “You do?”

 

“Yes,” he said. He took a deep breath. “The thing is, Lydia, you’ve been acting kind of strange since coming back here. Pushing people away, coming back for something other than the reunion … I was thinking about the reasons why you might not want to go back to New York right now. And I thought, _maybe_ —”

 

The phone ringing interrupted his jumbled speech, but he was kind of grateful. How could he sensitively say: _I know that your boyfriend or loved one died_ without sounding like he’d been stalking her, or something equally weird? He had to approach it in the right way, and he felt it in his gut that he was right.

 

It explained everything.

 

“Sorry,” Lydia said, getting to her feet. “I should probably get that.”

 

“Go for it,” he told her.

 

She shot him a grateful look and disappeared down the hallway to answer the phone, leaving him alone. He wondered what to say to her, how to approach the topic. He’d had this talk with many families before, he’d had to talk about sensitive subjects before, but he hadn’t had to talk about this with Lydia _ever._ He hadn’t even managed to talk to her after Allison died. He hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, he’d been dealing with Scott and coping with his own grief, and by the time he saw her, it was like he didn’t know how to have that conversation with her.

 

He wished he’d been able to do more for her then, which was exactly why he’d chosen to have this conversation with her now. She was grieving somebody, he was sure of it, and he would be there for her this time.

 

He wouldn’t just let her go, because letting her go was the absolute worst thing he’d done last time.

 

While these thoughts whirled around in his head, she came back into the room with the phone in her hand.

 

“Stiles,” she said, her eyes wide and panicked, “that was my mom. Her boyfriend — my stepdad, I guess — he’s just been taken into hospital. I have to go.”

 

He got to his feet, reaching for his car keys in his back pocket. “Let’s go, then. I’ll drive.”

 

____________________________________________

 

Stiles placed two cups of coffee down beside Lydia, smiling grimly.

 

“Sorry,” he said, “it’s the best the vending machine had.”

 

She picked it up and cupped it in her hands. “Thanks.”

 

“I got one for your mom too,” he said, gesturing to the second cup of coffee he’d put on the table. “I thought she might want it.”

 

Lydia smiled up at him. He sat down beside her, nervously running his fingers through his hair.

 

“Thanks,” she said again. Then, “You know, you don’t have to stick around.”

 

“Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “I’m staying.”

 

“You don’t even know Eric,” Lydia reminded him. “Then again, _I_ don’t really know Eric and _I’m_ here.”

 

He smiled. Even when they’d been sitting in the hospital’s waiting room for almost two hours and she’d been nervously waiting to hear news of her stepfather, she still managed to crack a smile and a joke.

 

It felt like they’d been waiting since forever and they still didn’t know anything more than they had when they’d first arrived. They’d got to the hospital in record time — Stiles had broken numerous traffic laws on the way over and prayed that his dad would be able to turn a blind eye — and rushed straight to the emergency room, where Lydia’s stepfather, Eric, had been admitted. They hadn’t been allowed to go through to see him, but Natalie had told them the doctors suspected Eric had had a heart attack.

 

They’d been waiting ever since.

 

“You don’t like the guy?” Stiles asked her.

 

Lydia shrugged, tucking her hair behind her ears. She kept an eye on the door that led through to where Eric was, just in case her mom showed up and overheard them.

 

“I don’t _know_ him,” she said. She shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other and turning so she faced him more. “They got together when I was in college, moved in together when I moved to New York. I just …”

 

He waited for a few seconds for her to continue. He had a strange suspicion that Lydia was about to confide in him about something.

 

“I don’t expect her to ask my permission before dating someone,” she continued, “but he just … he has this thing where if I need my mom, he’ll make sure that he needs her more. She couldn’t pick me up from the airport because something came up with him.”

 

“That’s why you got a cab,” he said, remembering.

 

She brightened. Just a little bit. “Yeah. That’s why.”

 

“He sounds like a jerk — although maybe I shouldn’t be saying that, considering the guy is in hospital right now.”

 

Lydia allowed herself to smile. She kept her voice low as she said, “He _is_ kind of a jerk.”

 

“In that case, it’s great you’re here. To support your mom.”

 

“Well,” Lydia shrugged, “she’s been there for me through a lot.”

 

“Right,” Stiles replied thoughtfully.

 

He knew it wasn’t the right time — not at all. He practically had to force himself to keep quiet, knowing that she’d probably shut down if he tried to address things with her now. He would just wait.

 

“You want me to ask if there’s any news?” he volunteered.

 

“No, no,” she answered. “I should go.”

 

“Let me help,” he said, his voice low. She looked at him for a few seconds. He reached for the coffee and passed it over to her, silently telling her to just sit, drink coffee, and try not to worry.

 

“Okay,” she relented finally.

 

He checked to make sure she was okay before he got up and walked over to the reception desk, leaning against it comfortably. He felt like he knew the hospital like the back of his hand, having spent most of his high school years there.

 

“Excuse me,” he said to the receptionist behind the desk. “Can you tell me anything about Eric Johnson? He’s a patient in room one-oh-three. Got admitted about two and a half hours ago with chest pains. Suspected heart attack.”

 

The receptionist regarded him wearily. “Are you family?”

 

“No, but I —”

 

“In that case, it’s confidential,” the receptionist told him, shrugging. “Sorry.”

 

“Okay, but his stepdaughter is my —”

 

“Confidential information,” the receptionist repeated, raising an eyebrow with disdain. “I cannot give it out to non-family members.”

 

At that moment, a nurse stepped into view. A nurse Stiles recognised. His face broke out into a bright smile as Melissa McCall approached the desk, looking irritated.

 

“Wendy, I told you to give Mr. Stilinski whatever information he required for Mr. Johnson,” she told the receptionist, who just shrugged in response.

 

After finishing with her scolding, Melissa walked around the desk and pulled Stiles in for a long hug. He put his arms around her and closed his eyes, feeling the tension and stress leave his body. Melissa was like a mother to him and just her presence made him feel better.

 

“Hey, kiddo,” she said, pulling away. “How’ve you been?”

 

“Not bad, thanks.”

 

“You’re here to see Eric Johnson?” she asked, reaching for a clipboard on the side of the desk and flipping to a certain page. “How do you know him, kid?”

 

“He’s Lydia’s Mom’s boyfriend,” he told her. “So, we should probably go over to where Lydia is, so she can hear too.”

 

“Lydia?”

 

He nodded. “Lydia Martin. You remember —?”

 

“Of course I _remember_ her, Stiles. I mean, you’re here? With her?”

 

“Don’t make it a big deal,” he whispered to her urgently, just as they began walking over to the area where Lydia was still waiting. The last thing he wanted was for Melissa to act weird about the fact that Stiles and Lydia were there, at the hospital, _together._

 

“Are you two an item now?” Melissa asked, without lowering the volume of her voice in the slightest.

 

“No,” Stiles hissed in response, widening his eyes and gesturing to Lydia with a small, discreet nod of his head. “And she’s right _there._ Be quiet.”

 

“Lydia!” Melissa greeted the young woman, who still sat in the chair with the cup of coffee in her hands. “It’s been a while. How have you been?”

 

Lydia looked up at Melissa, recognition dawning on her pretty face.

 

“Mrs. McCall?”

 

“Please,” Melissa answered, “call me Melissa. There’s no need for formalities with you kids.”

 

“Oh,” Lydia said, smiling faintly. “Okay.”

 

“So, your stepfather —”

 

“He’s my mom’s boyfriend,” Lydia quickly interjected.

 

Melissa nodded. “Your mom’s boyfriend is okay, he’s stable. Your mom is in there with him now, but unfortunately we can’t allow anybody in who isn’t a relation. He’s unconscious at the moment, so you guys may want to wait around until he wakes up. Alternatively, it could be another few hours, so you might want to just go home, get some sleep, take a shower or something and come back. There’s no rush — he’ll be okay.”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

“He had a very minor heart attack,” Melissa informed Lydia. Stiles saw Lydia’s lip quivering and he wanted so desperately to reach out to her and comfort her, but he knew he wasn’t in a position to do so. “He’s going to be fine.”

 

Lydia glanced up at Stiles, like she was waiting for something.

 

Finally, he said, “Your decision. I can stay.”

 

“You really shouldn’t have to,” she replied quickly.

 

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Melissa said, clearly thinking she was subtle as she shot Stiles a knowing look. She backed away, before she disappeared completely, and Stiles took the seat beside Lydia.

 

“I’m staying if you’re staying.”

 

“He’s unconscious — it could be hours.”

 

“Then we’ll go.”

 

“But it might _not_ be hours.”

 

He smiled. “Then we’ll stay.”

 

“Stiles, I can’t ask you to do that.”

 

“I am not leaving you here,” he told her firmly. He leaned back in the seat, showing that he was adamant he wouldn’t leave.

 

“I’ll be fine by myself.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere without you,” he said.

 

She leaned back quietly. “I’ll check on my mom. She might tell us to just go.”

 

“Okay.”

 

He waited as she got up and walked over to the room where Eric was being kept. She knocked on the door a few times, shooting him a quick smile, and Natalie opened the door some seconds later. He watched as they talked in low voices, before Lydia kissed her mom on the cheek and headed back over to him.

 

“She thinks we should go,” she told him. “Things are looking good, they’re just keeping him for observations and waiting until he wakes up. It isn’t like we need to be here when he _does_ wake up, considering …”

 

“You don’t like him?” Stiles asked, getting to his feet.

 

She reached out and smacked his arm disapprovingly, but he noticed she couldn’t hide a small smile.

 

“We’ll go, then,” she said.

 

“He’ll be fine, Lydia,” he told her. “He’s in good hands. How many times did this hospital save _our_ asses in high school?”

 

He kind of wished he hadn’t said it. The second the words left his mouth, he realised the person that they _hadn’t_ been able to save. She hesitated with his words, but then picked up her purse.

 

“You’re right,” she said, “Melissa will take care of him.”

 

“She will.”

 

They began to leave the hospital together and Stiles tossed his keys up and down in his hand, while Lydia was uncharacteristically quiet. Stiles wondered if he should start conversation, ask her if she was okay or reassure her that her stepfather — sorry, mom’s boyfriend — was going to be just fine, but he didn’t know which one was the correct thing to do.

 

So, he said nothing.

 

They got into his car and she reached for the volume dial for the radio, turning it all the way up.

 

He drove halfway to hers before he reached over and turned it down. “You okay?”

 

“Yeah,” she replied.

 

“Look,” he began. Screw perfect timing. This seemed like an _okay_ opportunity. “I can’t help but notice that you seem a little … affected. It can’t be about Eric because you don’t like the guy, so is there something else that’s bothering you?”

 

She looked at him. “How did you know?”

 

“A hunch.”

 

“No, I mean it,” she continued, narrowing her eyes at him. “How do you always know?”

 

He thought about it. He thought about his answer carefully. Finally, he said, “I spent the majority of our senior year making sure you were okay. From a distance. Because, you know, you wouldn’t _talk_ to us …”

 

She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly and he smiled to himself, pleased that she’d given a reaction like that. In Lydia Martin language, that meant something like affection.

 

“I just …” he continued, shaking his head with embarrassment. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. I became pretty good at knowing what you looked like when you _weren’t_ okay, and, well, I can see that now.”

 

“It isn’t what you think,” she said, “it isn’t about Allison.”

 

“It isn’t?”

 

He swung his Jeep into the Martins’ driveway and cut the engine. Just as he cut the lights, a figure on the porch moved and stood up. From the car, they could only make out the silhouette of the person. They’d been at the hospital so long, it had grown dark outside and Stiles realised just how late it was.

 

“Who’s that?” he asked, but Lydia was already getting out of the car and jumping down onto the ground. He followed carefully, removing the key from the ignition and opening his door, jumping down and following her to the porch.

 

The automatic light from the porch started burning brightly with the movement of people and Stiles could just about see a guy, tall with blond hair, standing on the porch.  
Lydia walked up to him with purpose and Stiles realised that this wasn’t just some delivery guy, or someone trying to sell them something, Lydia _knew_ this guy.

 

“Lydia,” He spoke louder than he’d meant to, and Lydia turned around to look at him, surprised, like she’d forgotten he was there. “What’s going on? Who is this?”

 

The guy stepped further into the light, his hand clutching onto Lydia’s protectively. Stiles looked at the way their hands were locked together and the way the guy narrowed his eyes at him accusingly, suspiciously. Stiles straightened up to his full height, knowing that the other guy would still be taller, but trying anyway.

 

“Stiles, wait —” Lydia began.

 

“I’m Matthew,” the guy told him, speaking over her. “Lydia’s boyfriend. Who the hell are you?”


	10. It's Complicated

Lydia watched helplessly as Stiles got back into the Jeep and turned the engine on without a word to either of them. She watched as he pulled out of the driveway without looking at her, then drove down the street and disappeared out of view.

 

She felt like she couldn’t move.

 

She felt like her feet were glued to the spot.

 

Matthew was standing beside her, watching her, and she knew that if she ran after Stiles or jumped in her mom’s car to follow him, she’d owe Matthew an explanation.

 

“Lydia?” Matthew’s voice brought her to the present. “Are you all right?”

 

“I need to go inside,” she said, reaching for her keys. She didn’t even have the energy to yell at him or demand to know why he was there. It was later than she’d realised and she was tired and smelled of hospitals.

 

“I’ll make us some coffee,” Matthew offered, following her in as she pushed the door to the house open and stepped inside.

 

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “You won’t.”

 

“You look exhausted. I’ll make us some coffee and we can talk —”

 

“I don’t think so,” she answered firmly. “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed. I hope to God you’ve booked a room at a motel tonight. You’re not staying here.”

 

“Lydia —”

 

“You are _not_ staying here,” she repeated with one eyebrow raised.

 

Matthew looked at her, his eyes narrowed, then appeared to back off. “I’ll get a motel room, then.”

 

“I think that’s a good idea.”

 

“Can we at least talk?” he asked. “I just — I came all this way, Lydia.”

 

“I don’t care if you’d come all the way from freaking Timbuktu, Matthew, I don’t want to _see_ you!”

 

“Who was that guy?” Matthew asked, changing the subject. Lydia’s shoulders sunk and she rolled her eyes. It was just _typical_ of him to change the subject like that, like he thought he was being subtle when, really, it was just about the most obvious thing.

 

Not only did she _not_ want to talk to him at all, but she specifically didn’t want to talk to him about Stiles.

 

Stiles.

 

She wondered why he’d walked away like that. He’d looked so confused, so disappointed. Was it because she hadn’t told him? Was there something else?

 

She didn’t want to talk about him at all to Matthew. Matthew didn’t deserve to hear about him.

 

“Nobody,” she answered, crossing her arms.

 

It pained her to say that Stiles was _nobody_ , but she knew any information would verge on dangerous. Matthew would use it to manipulate her.

 

“Didn’t look like nobody,” he replied. “Looked like a date.”

 

“It wasn’t.”

 

“You got back kind of late.”

 

“We were —” She sighed. He would find out sooner or later. “We were at the hospital. Eric’s there.”

 

“Eric? Your mom’s boyfriend?” Matthew looked concerned. He _actually_ looked concerned. Lydia straightened up, reminding herself inwardly that he was probably lying. “What happened?”

 

“Minor heart attack, but he’ll be okay,” she said. Then, quietly, she said, “You should go.”

 

“Lydia—”

 

“I’m tired,” she interrupted, “and I don’t want to talk to you. You need to go, or I’ll call the Sheriff and ask him to escort you out of my house.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Matthew raised his hands, surrendering. “But I’m coming back tomorrow.”

 

“I have nothing to say to you.”

 

He wouldn’t take no for an answer. He never could. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

 

He left the house, the door swinging shut behind him, and she looked out of the window as he crossed the street over to where his car was parked. She waited until he’d driven away before she let the curtain drop.

 

With a pounding heart, she called Stiles’s phone. He didn’t pick up.

 

“Hey, Stiles,” she said, “look, I’m sorry about … that. What happened. It … it’s complicated. Anyway, thanks for coming with me to the hospital today. Maybe we can talk tomorrow.”

 

She hung up, heaving a huge sigh before she dropped down onto the couch. It was like almost like fate was working against them. At the hospital, Stiles had been so attentive and caring, she’d started to wonder if she’d been wrong assuming that Stiles had feelings for Malia.

 

She’d started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, she’d got it all wrong.

 

And she’d decided on the ride home that she would tell him. She would tell him everything. She’d tell him about how she’d loved him when they were juniors, and she’d loved him even more when they were seniors, but she couldn’t be with him or be friends with him because of everything that had happened.

 

She was going to tell him that she’d loved him since she was eighteen years old, but now she couldn’t. Because Matthew was back and this was a whole other mess she had to deal with.

 

Matthew wasn’t her _boyfriend._

 

God, no. She wasn’t crazy.

 

He was her ex-fiancé, and he’d broken her heart into pieces.

 

____________________________________________

 

Lydia needed to talk to someone, but the only person she wanted to talk to was Stiles.

 

She knew Matthew would be back the next morning as he’d promised — he didn’t give up easily — but the only person she wanted to talk to was Stiles.

 

But he wasn’t picking up the phone when she called him, and eventually she resorted to Scott.

 

Thankfully, Scott picked up.

 

“Lydia?” He seemed surprised to hear from her. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah, I was just wondering if you’ve seen or spoken to Stiles?”

 

Scott faltered. “Um …”

 

“Great,” Lydia pursed her lips. “You’ve already talked to him, haven’t you?”

 

“Look, Lydia, I don’t want to get involved. I talked to him last night, he was pretty confused about everything. Maybe you should give him some space.”

 

“Scott, I _need_ to talk to him.”

 

“Well,” Scott sighed, “that’s your decision. But I know Stiles, and —”

 

“I know Stiles too,” she snapped in reply, immediately feeling guilty for being short with Scott, but she _did_ know Stiles. And she felt an overwhelming need to speak to him to explain.

 

“I know you do,” he replied, his voice gentle. Finally, he added, “He’s at his house.”

 

“Thank you,” she answered, hanging up the phone and shoving it into her back pocket. She grabbed her mom’s car keys from the hook on the wall, slid her sunglasses on, and left the house.

 

She managed to get all the way to Stiles’s house and pull into the driveway without being seen. She locked the car and jogged over to the front door of the Stilinskis’ house.

 

The Sheriff answered. His face broke out into a smile when he saw Lydia and she felt a flood of warmth that he recognised her. At least _he_ was smiling at her.

 

“Lydia!” he said. “I’d heard you were back in town. How are you?”

 

“Good, thanks. Good.”

 

“How’s Eric?” Noah asked. “I heard he’s in hospital.”

 

“He’s okay,” Lydia nodded. She’d spoken to her mom earlier that morning to check up on how Eric was doing. “Thanks for asking.”

 

“Well, give them my —”

 

“Pops, come on,” Stiles appeared behind his father, interrupting their conversation. Noah stepped aside to allow Stiles to step forward to the forefront.

 

Lydia felt strangely nervous seeing him, wearing a dark red T-shirt and grey sweats, his hair messy like he’d only just woken up. She didn’t even know why she was there or why she felt like she needed to explain — there wasn’t anything between them, it wasn’t like they were dating and her ex-boyfriend had shown up out of the blue. They were _just_ friends — and only just recently had they come to a position where she even considered them friends — and she shouldn’t need to defend herself to him.

 

So why did she feel like she owed him that?

 

“I’ll let you kids talk,” Noah said, smiling at Lydia. “Nice to see you again, Lydia.”

 

“And you,” she said, wishing that Noah could stay for another few minutes — only because it prolonged the inevitable. But Noah left, and Stiles looked at her expectantly.

 

Despite the fact that he was confused and irritated, Stiles still looked at her face — filled with worry — and said, slightly begrudgingly, “You okay?”

 

She nodded. “You want to sit out here?”

 

He shrugged and followed her out to the porch, pulling the front door shut behind him.

 

“So,” he said, “why have you left twenty messages on my phone?”

 

She sighed. “He isn’t my boyfriend.”

 

“Oh,” Stiles raised his eyebrows, “great. We’re talking about that.”

 

“I just wanted to tell you.”

 

“Why?” he asked. “You don’t owe me an explanation.”

 

She nodded slowly. He was right. Technically, she didn’t, but she didn’t like the thought of him thinking that she’d been lying to him in the few days that she’d been home and in the time they’d spent together.

 

“Maybe not, but I didn’t want you to think that I’ve been lying to you,” she said. “He isn’t my boyfriend.”

 

“Okay,” Stiles answered. Lydia suspected he was trying to act indifferent, but she could tell that he felt uncomfortable from the way he kept tugging at the collar of his T-shirt.

 

It had always been his tell.

 

“Who is he, then?” he asked.

 

“He’s my ex,” she replied. She sighed. She may as well tell him the entire truth. “He’s my ex-fiancé, actually. His name is Matthew.”

 

“He’s the reason you came back here?”

 

She nodded, unsurprised that he’d figured it out so quickly. It was Stiles, after all.

 

“Matthew cheated on me six months ago,” she explained, “just a few weeks before our wedding day. I broke it off, but that didn’t mean I found it easy. A few weeks ago, my boss told me to take some time off work and come home. He told me that I needed to take until things were better — and I was starting to, until he showed up last night.”

 

Stiles sighed. “Lydia …”

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t say anything,” she continued, shaking her head. “I’m used to keeping things to myself. I’m used to bottling things up. Matthew never let me feel exactly … emotionally secure in our relationship.”

 

“I’m sorry, Lydia,” he said.

 

“Thanks,” she replied crisply. She hated feeling sorry for herself. She straightened up. “I just wanted to explain that to you.”

 

“What are you going to do about him?”

 

“Move house so he can never find me again?” she offered wryly, then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

 

“Do you want me to come back with you?”

 

“Are you still mad at me?”

 

“I was never …” He hesitated to wrinkle his nose. “I was never _mad_ at you. Just confused. I thought … well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

 

“I’ll be fine,” she answered. “He’s harmless. Mostly.”

 

“If you need anything, call me. I mean it, Lydia.”

 

Spontaneously, she reached for his hand and squeezed it. He seemed frozen in place, his hand rigid to touch, but eventually he relaxed it and smiled at her. She thought about the time that she’d kissed him in the school locker room, how he’d been so tense before and then, during the kiss, had relaxed. She thought about that moment a lot.

 

“You’re a good friend, Stiles.”

 

He cracked a smile. “So we’re friends?”

 

“We always were.”

 

And she meant it.

 

____________________________________________

 

 

When she returned to her mom’s house, Matthew was sitting on the front step, waiting. She took her time collecting her things together and cutting the engine of the car, opening the door and sliding out, elongating the task for as long as possible.

 

Finally, she had no choice but to walk up to him.

 

She stopped a yard or so in front of him.

 

“What do you want, Matthew?”

 

He looked up at her, wide-eyed and ready to plead for her forgiveness. She recognised the look because she’d seen it before — from all the other times when he’d begged for her forgiveness.

 

“I want you back, Lydia — I still love you,” he told her. “And I think that you still love me, too.”

 

For some reason, an image of Stiles flashed through Lydia’s mind when she heard Matthew’s words.

 

“I don’t,” she replied flatly.

 

“I think —” he tried again, this time making intense eye contact — “that you do. And I just think you need time to see it, then we can get back on track. We can be _us_ again and you can come home, to New York, rather than being here.”

 

“Matthew, this needs to stop,” she said to him. She hadn’t told Stiles the _entire_ truth, and that included how Matthew could sometimes be threatening. “I came here to get away from you. Don’t you see that?”

 

“Your assistant said you were taking some personal time,” Matthew said, “and I was worried about you.”

 

“You cheated on me! Repeatedly!” she cried frustratedly. “You _broke_ me. I came here because you wouldn’t leave me alone. You wouldn’t let me get on with my life. I came here for an _escape_.”

 

It finally seemed to sink in with him. His face cleared, but then he narrowed his eyes again, shaking his head.

 

“We’re meant to be together.”

 

“You need to leave,” she said, “or I’m calling the cops.”

 

“Right, right. You mean the Sheriff?”

 

“No, Matthew, the _cops_ ,” she told him. “I’m not afraid to do it. You can’t just let me live my life, can you? You can’t let me be _happy_.”

 

“And I suppose you’re happy with him?” Matthew asked, gesticulating wildly around them. “I mean, you moved fast, Lydia, I’ll give you that.”

 

“He’s a friend.”

 

“Of course he is,” Matthew didn’t believe her. He sneered at her.

 

Lydia remembered how Matthew used to make her feel: small, insignificant. She’d changed so much after Jackson left town and she realised she’d deserved better all along, but Matthew had come along in a time when she was still vulnerable and reeling after Allison’s death. He’d made her feel so safe and loved for a long time, but then things started to change. He’d become nasty. He’d ignore her for days, then come home and expect for everything to be the same.

 

It was difficult to tell when things changed, when Lydia was no longer intimidated by him and no longer wanted to do anything to impress him. Actually, it wasn’t that difficult.

 

It started the second she walked in on him in bed with another woman, when she’d managed to get on an earlier flight home from Boston, and she’d gone back to their apartment four hours before she was supposed to.

 

She’d screamed at him for hours, tossed all of his shit out into the hallway, and demanded that he never speak to her again.

 

And for a month or two, he’d respected that. He’d stayed away. But then Matthew seemed to think an appropriate amount of time had passed, and he could come back and beg for her forgiveness. At first, he’d show up at their apartment and ask to talk to her. When she said no, he started showing up at work.

 

Eventually, not only was she dealing with a broken heart, but a crazy, obsessive ex who wouldn’t leave her alone. That was why Mickey had sent her home. He’d become tired of calling security everyday to escort her ex-fiancé off the premises, and told her the entire staff needed a break.

 

Because of him, she was close to losing her job.

 

“You need to leave,” she told him. “Right now.”

 

“I’m not going anywhere until we just _talk_ — that’s all I want to do,” he said. He reached for her hands and she flinched, pulling away from him. “Lydia, come on.”

 

“Leave me alone or I’ll — I’ll scream,” she told him. She braced herself. She would do it. She would actually scream.

 

He grabbed hold of her arm. “Lydia —”

 

“Let go of me.”

 

“Lydia, just _listen_ —”

 

“She said let go of her,” a voice interrupted Matthew, and they both turned to see Stiles standing in the driveway. “Or the Sheriff of Beacon Hills _and_ an FBI Agent can escort you off the premises.” 

 

Stiles reached in his pocket, pulling out his badge triumphantly.

 

“Look,” Matthew, thankfully, let go of her arm, but he spun around to face Stiles. Lydia sighed — he was feeling confrontational. “I’m not trying to cause any trouble. But this is none of your business, man.”

 

“She’s my friend,” Stiles said, “that makes it my business.”

 

“Yeah, and mine too,” said another voice from behind Stiles.

 

Scott stepped into view, appearing in that werewolf way he did when he just seemed to materialise from the shadows. He was wearing an old leather jacket and carried a motorcycle helmet under his arm, like he’d literally just arrived.

 

Matthew was clearly unimpressed. “Wow,” he remarked dryly. “Terrifying.”

 

“I’d leave her alone if I were you,” Stiles said. “I’ve got the Sheriff on speed dial.”

 

“Whatever,” Matthew replied. He turned to Lydia. “This isn’t over, Lydia. I still love you — I’m going to prove it. I’ll take down this entire town if I have to.”

 

He walked away, brushing past Stiles as he left, but dodging Scott. The two men waited until he’d gone, before Stiles reached Lydia’s side. He touched her arm, his face etched with deep concern, his eyes flickering across her face like he was trying to find evidence of any pain.

 

“You okay?”

 

She nodded. “I’m fine. It was nothing.”

 

“That wasn’t _nothing_ , that guy’s a total creep,” Stiles said.

 

“Lydia?” Scott approached them, also looking worried. “Are you okay?”

 

“Did he hurt you at all?” Stiles asked.

 

“Guys, I’m fine,” Lydia answered. She was touched by their concern; it felt very reminiscent of old times and how protective they’d been, but she also knew, unfortunately, that they’d just made things worse.

 

“We should go inside before he comes back,” Scott suggested.

 

He gestured for Lydia to open the door and she did, too tired to argue back. She knew that, whatever she said, they’d be concerned. Either way, she didn’t feel up to persuading an alpha werewolf and an FBI agent that she didn’t need their help. It was practically programmed into them to not take no for an answer.

 

The three of them filed into the house and Stiles immediately headed for the kitchen, disappearing out of sight. She heard the clinking of china and cutlery and assumed he was making coffee, so followed him through to the kitchen and hopped up onto one of the stools at the island. Scott came through shortly after, checking through the window that Matthew hadn’t come back.

 

“So,” Stiles said, attempting — Lydia noticed — to keep his voice light and breezy. It wasn’t working. “That’s the ex-fiancé.”

 

“That’s him.”

 

“He seems _great_ ,” he continued.

 

“Stiles,” Scott interjected, a warning tone creeping into his voice. Lydia knew that Scott wouldn’t be taking this kind of thing lightly, like it was a joke; a villain was a villain, no matter if he had supernatural abilities or not. “No bickering, please, guys. I’m going to check outside and make sure he’s really gone.”

 

Scott left, leaving Lydia and Stiles alone in the kitchen.

 

Stiles waited approximately four seconds before he continued with his rant.

 

“You know, I didn’t think you could _possibly_ date someone worse than Jackson Whittemore — but then _that_ guy shows up?” he said, clenching his teeth. “God, Lydia. You can really … you can really pick them, can’t you?”

 

“What’s your _problem_? So what, I’ve dated a few bad guys? Like you haven’t made some poor dating choices, too.”

 

Stiles dropped the spoon he was holding and it clattered onto the counter with a loud clang; he didn’t seem to notice. He stared at Lydia, open-mouthed.

 

“ _I_ made some poor dating choices? Lydia, you dated a _freaking_ homicidal _lizard_ and one half of murderous twin alphas. But _I_ made poor dating choices?”

 

“Jackson was a _Kanima_ , not a lizard,” she snapped, “and Aidan was a good guy. Deep down.”

 

“Somewhere underneath all of that murdering, I’m sure he was,” Stiles replied sarcastically. “My point is, _that_ guy is human and also an asshole. He doesn’t even have the supernatural as an excuse.”

 

Lydia was stumped because he was right. Matthew wasn’t exactly a decent guy, and he couldn’t even blame that on being an out-of-control supernatural creature. He was just … an asshole, as Stiles so eloquently worded it.

 

Satisfied with winning their argument, Stiles picked up the spoon, washed it, and stirred the three cups of coffee he was in the process of making.

 

“Who did _I_ date that was supposedly bad, anyway?”

 

“Cora Hale,” Lydia replied icily. She’d seen the two of them together. She’d seen the way they acted around each other.

 

“I never dated Cora Hale,” Stiles told her, frowning.

 

“It sure seemed like it.”

 

“Well, it never happened.”

 

“Oh,” Lydia stopped. She was intrigued. “Why not?”

 

Stiles shrugged and slid the coffee across the counter to her. She grabbed it and pulled it in closer to her.

 

“Never worked out,” he told her.

 

“Well, how come?”

 

“We were just … different.”

 

Lydia smirked. “And by that, you mean … she was a werewolf and you’re human. Are interspecies relationships not your thing?”

 

His expression was grim as he raised an eyebrow. “Something like that.”

 

“Come on, I’m curious now. What happened with her? Was it that she was in desperate need of a pedicure and some anger management classes?”

 

“Shut up,” Stiles shook his head, rolling his eyes.

 

“Come to think of it, I guess interspecies relationships _are_ your thing, huh?” she joked. When he stared at her, she added, “Were-coyote, too.”

 

“Right,” he said slowly, nodding. “You know, I don’t tend to choose people to date based on their supernatural prowess.”

 

She pretended to be shocked, gasping. “You _don’t_?”

 

“Lydia.”

 

“No, you know? It’s kind of refreshing mocking someone else’s dating history for a change,” she told him.

 

He looked at her for a long time, then shrugged. “Keep mocking, then.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“If it makes you happy,” he said, taking a sip of his coffee and looking away.

 

She smiled softly at his words. _If it makes you happy._ Whenever Matthew had uttered those same words, he’d usually meant them sarcastically. The same went for Jackson — the statement had usually been accompanied by an eye roll of some kind, basically telling her that he didn’t care what she did, who she did it with, just as long as it got her off his back.

 

When Stiles said it, she felt like he meant it.

 

“So, no current girlfriend,” she said. “No werewolves on the market for you?”

 

He smiled. “There’s always Scott.”

 

At that moment, Scott appeared in the doorway. Immediately, he was confused and suspicious.

 

“What do you mean, there’s _always_ me?”

 

“To date,” Stiles informed his best friend. He gestured to the third cup of coffee on the counter. “This is for you.”

 

“Thanks,” Scott stepped over, still eyeing them both suspiciously. He looked at Lydia, assuming his Serious Alpha Face. “I checked all around the surrounding streets and I can’t find him anywhere, or smell him. He’s gone.”

 

“Thank you,” she said.

 

“So,” Stiles began.

 

She looked at him. “What?”

 

“So, are you going to tell us what the hell happened back there?” he continued, his eyes narrowing. “He was close to threatening you and you don’t seem to think that’s a big deal.”

 

“No, I know that it is,” Lydia acknowledged, “but …”

 

“ _But_?” Stiles demanded.

 

“Will you calm down? The situation is under control — I know how to handle Matthew.”

 

“Well, _Matthew_ doesn’t seem to have understood that message,” Stiles answered, “maybe I could enforce it. With my bat. Multiple times, if necessary.”

 

“Stiles,” Scott said, sighing. He turned to Lydia. “Lydia. If this guy is bothering you in any way, we can get the cops involved. There are ways we can handle it _without_ using force.”

 

“My bat is in the Jeep,” Stiles volunteered, holding his hands up in a surrender motion. “I propose it as Plan B.”

 

“Stiles —”

 

“Actually,” Lydia interrupted Scott, “I wouldn’t be totally opposed to that.”

 

“Guys,” Scott shook his head. “We’re doing this the right way. Matthew is a regular human who cannot heal fast. If we take a baseball bat to his knees, it’ll cause him some serious damage.”

 

Stiles grinned gleefully. “Exactly.”

 

“That is _not_ what I meant,” Scott replied sharply. “Lydia, we can help you. If this guy is dangerous, we can help you.”

 

“This time,” Stiles echoed, nodding, “we’ll be here for you.”

 

Lydia looked at the two boys, across from her. She felt her heart swell at the depths they were willing to go to protect her, to help her.

 

And just as Stiles had promised they would be there for her, she promised herself that this time, she would let them.


	11. It Had Always Been Lydia

Stiles paced as he waited for Scott at the bottom of the stairs.

 

Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Scott appeared and jogged down the steps to meet him. Stiles paused for a second, sniffing the air dramatically, and frowning at Scott.

 

“Why are you wearing cologne?”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Okay, Scott, even I could smell that from a mile away,” Stiles said. “What’s the occasion?”

 

“There’s no occasion.”

 

“There clearly is,” Stiles said. He refused to let it drop. “We’re going to the cafe.”

 

“I know that.”

 

“But you’re wearing cologne — like it’s a date.”

 

“Stiles,” Scott growled. “Drop it. We’re running late.”

 

“Right,” Stiles replied, as Scott opened the front door to his house and walked outside. Stiles followed him, skipping to keep up with Scott’s long strides. “Because _you_ took forever getting all spruced up. I didn’t realise this was a date.”

 

“No? But I bet you wish it was, considering Lydia will be there,” Scott answered. He opened the passenger side door to the Jeep and relaxed for the few seconds it took for

 

Stiles to climb into the driver’s side.

 

Once he did, it didn’t take long for the interrogation to start up again. “We’re not talking about me at the moment, Scotty, we’re talking about _you._ So, who is it? Malia? Kira? The cafe owner?”

 

“Stiles, I am begging you — drop this,” Scott told him. He shot his best friend a look. “It’s nothing that concerns you.”

 

“Nothing that — nothing that _concerns_ me?” Stiles pressed a hand to his chest, only half faking offence. He started the engine and pulled out from Scott’s driveway, starting the drive to the cafe they were meeting the girls in.

 

“Let’s talk about you and Lydia,” Scott changed the subject, and in the least subtle way possible. Stiles raised his eyebrows at his friend, but said nothing, just waited for Scott to continue. “When are you going to tell her that you still like her?”

 

“Uh … that would be — the second of … oh right, I’m not,” Stiles replied flatly. “Come on, Scott. I can’t.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“It’s _Lydia_.”

 

“We’re not in high school anymore, Stiles. Tell her how you feel.”

 

“She’s got this ex hanging around. It’s bad timing.”

 

“It’s always going to be bad timing — once the ex is gone, she’ll go back to New York, it’ll be bad timing then as well,” Scott reminded him. He sighed. “Look, I heard you guys talking the other day. I heard what you said about Cora.”

 

“Scott,” Stiles rolled his eyes, “I wish you wouldn’t use your little werewolf superpowers to eavesdrop.”

 

“Why didn’t you just tell her that things didn’t work out with Cora because you were in love with Lydia? Why didn’t you tell her that you chose _her_?”

 

“There was no _choosing_ involved. Not dating Cora, breaking up with Malia, it wasn’t because there was a chance I could be with Lydia ... It was because ... I don’t know. It doesn’t matter anyway, it wasn’t the right time.”

 

“It seemed like an okay time to me,” Scott said softly. He added, “It sounded just like old times between you two. We could have been back in junior year.”

 

Stiles signalled to turn into the parking lot for the cafe. He could see Kira’s car parked outside already. As far as he knew, the three girls had ridden in together, which meant this conversation had to end pretty soon.

 

“Yeah, well,” Stiles parked the Jeep haphazardly. “We’re not.”

 

“But you _could_ be,” Scott insisted, then rolled his eyes when Stiles frowned at him. “You know what I mean. I’m not suggesting you go back to school and redo junior year, I’m saying you could do exactly what you _should have_ done then. Ask her out. Tell her how you feel.”

 

Stiles said nothing. He was hoping that his silence would end the conversation.

 

“Come on, man. With you, it’s always been her. I’ve been listening to you going on about this girl for, like, twenty years. Tell her that you’ve always loved her.”

 

Stiles shot him a look. “That I _love_ her?”

 

“Okay, maybe not _that._ Admittedly, that might freak her out,” Scott agreed. “But at least tell how you feel — that you like her. She might even feel the same. I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.”

 

Stiles opened the driver’s seat door and hopped out of the Jeep, slamming it behind him. By the time he reached the front of the vehicle, Scott was already there, with his reasoning face on.

 

“You know I can’t do that, Scott — I can’t tell her,” Stiles answered.

 

He chose to ignore Scott’s comment about how they looked at each other. He knew how he looked at Lydia — like he was trying desperately to look at her casually and  _not_ show anything about how he might feel for her — but Lydia didn’t return that look at all. She always looked slightly unimpressed and amused when she looked at him, ready to roll her eyes. In fact, she usually  _did_ end up rolling her eyes.

 

That was hardly the look of love.

 

“You waited too long last time and look what happened.”

 

“Yeah, her best friend died,” Stiles replied softly, turning to look at Scott. “That had nothing to do with me _waiting too long_. She was grieving — it seemed a little insensitive to take that as an opportunity to ask her to the movies.”

 

“You know what I mean,” Scott said through gritted teeth. “We went to college and she moved to New York. That’s what happened. Are we really just going to go round in circles here? You like her, Stiles. Just tell her, for God’s sake. Put us all out of our misery.”

 

“Maybe, but …” He shrugged. “Look, Scott. This time, it isn’t about the constant prospect of rejection and humiliation, okay? We’re friends again. She has someone she can talk to about stuff — I think she’s really beginning to trust me again. I can’t jeopardise that.”

 

Scott opened the door to the cafe, determined to have the last word. “There’s a chance you wouldn’t be jeopardising anything, but making things better.”

 

Stiles spotted the three women sitting in the corner of the cafe: Kira on the left, Lydia in the middle and Malia on the other side of her. He couldn’t quite tell if things were tense and awkward before they’d walked in the room or because. They all had cups of steaming coffee in front of them and a plate of chocolate chip cookies in the middle of the table. He lifted his hand and waved at them, ignoring Scott’s final comment, and began walking over.

 

“Okay, have you guys come up with a plan yet?” he asked, grabbing a seat and sitting down beside Malia. He shot Lydia a small, nervous smile. It was the first time he’d seen her where he hadn’t been feeling awkward and the tension wasn’t palpable between them.

 

“We were waiting for you guys,” Malia said, staring at them. “You’re always the ones who come up with the plan. Not us.”

 

“You couldn’t have made a start? Brainstormed at all?”

 

Kira held up the plate of cookies. “We got cookies.”

 

“I can see that, thank you,” Stiles said, reaching for one anyway. With his mouth full, he turned to Scott, gesturing for him to take over the conversation.

 

“So,” Scott said, nodding, “we need to think of a plan to help Lydia out. Matthew seems like a pretty bad guy and he’s hanging around. Something should be done.”

 

“Okay,” Malia said slowly. “So, what is he?”

 

“An asshole,” Stiles offered, almost spraying cookie crumbs everywhere in his eagerness to volunteer the reply. Lydia raised an eyebrow at him in response.

 

“No, I mean … what _is_ he? Alpha? Beta? Chimera?”

 

“Just how dangerous do you think he is?” Kira asked. “I’ve been practising with my belt and I think I can take him. If he’s as powerful as Scott, we might need everyone on board, but we’ve beaten worse. Right?”

 

“And I can torture him,” Malia suggested. “I have no problem with that.”

 

Scott, Stiles and Lydia exchanged glances, with Lydia widening her eyes at the two boys.

 

“You didn’t _tell_ them?” she hissed.

 

Malia reached for a cookie. “Tell us what?”

 

“Matthew isn’t … supernatural,” Scott said slowly. “He’s human.”

 

“He’s an asshole,” Stiles added, feeling the need to emphasise that important point. “But very much of the human variety.”

 

“We can’t take down a guy who’s _human_ ,” Kira told them, shaking her head. “I’m a nurse — that’s completely immoral! My job is to get people out of hospital, not put people _in_ hospital!”

 

“We weren’t suggesting violence, Kira,” Scott told her softly. “We’re trying to help our friend. This guy is human, so he should, technically, be easier to deal with than packs of alphas and were-jaguars.”

 

“Were-jaguars?” Lydia repeated faintly.

 

“Kate Argent,” Stiles told her, only causing her to widen her eyes even more. Stiles forgot that Lydia didn’t know about everything that they knew about. She probably hadn’t even known Kate Argent was still alive. “I’ll explain later.”

 

She nodded. “Great.”

 

“We need to figure out a way to get this guy off Lydia’s back,” Stiles said, figuring he should help Scott out a little. He was the one who’d called the pack meeting. Well, half-pack meeting, since Liam and Mason hadn’t been able to make it. “So that he never bothers her again.”

 

“And who is this guy, exactly?” Kira asked.

 

“My ex-fiancé,” Lydia explained. “He became a little … obsessive after I broke up with him six months ago. He used to show up at my work, begging for forgiveness all the time. My boss eventually told me I couldn’t go to work until the problem was solved. I came back here … and he showed up the day before yesterday, trying to convince me that I should take him back.”

 

“Which you’re obviously not going to do,” Stiles concluded, looking at her. “Right?”

 

“Let’s see. He cheated on me multiple times, he harassed me at work, he followed me across the country to my house —”

 

“We get it, the guy’s a weirdo,” Malia interrupted, frowning. “What are _we_ supposed to do about it?”

 

“I’m all for helping Lydia, but this sounds like it’s a job for your dad, Stiles, not us,” Kira added. “I’m sorry, Lydia.”

 

“It’s fine,” Lydia answered, but her voice was unusually high-pitched. She blinked a few times in rapid succession; Stiles watched with confusion. He’d never seen her cry before. Not even at Allison’s funeral. “I should probably go. I have a stalker ex-fiancé to deal with.”

 

“Lydia,” Stiles stood up just as she did. She collected her jacket and scooted out from her chair. “Lydia, wait, come on —”

 

“Thanks for trying,” she said, her eyes lingering on Stiles for a second longer than everyone else, before she hurried out of the cafe.

 

Stiles turned, watching her go.

 

“Go after her,” Malia told him, like he was crazy.

 

“You think I should?”

 

“She doesn’t have a ride home,” Kira said. “She came with us.”

 

Stiles looked at Scott, who sighed. “I’ll get a ride home with these guys. Go. Talk to her.”

 

“Tell her how you feel,” Malia suggested with a grin. “So that the rest of us can stop pretending that you’re not into her.”

 

“How did you —?” He stopped, not wanting to finish that sentence. Jesus. How obvious _was_ it? He snapped his fingers and started backing out of the cafe. “See you guys later.”

 

Stiles turned and burst through the door of the cafe, stepping outside. He spotted Lydia standing by the sidewalk, trying to signal for a cab. He got into the Jeep and drove it over to where she was standing, pulling up beside her.

 

He wound down the window.

 

“Need a ride?”

 

She opened the door with little hesitation and climbed inside.

 

“Thanks.”

 

“No problem,” he answered. He waited just a few seconds before he approached the elephant in the room. Or, in the car. “Listen, I’ll figure something else out, I promise. Maybe we can’t get those guys on board, but this _is_ something we’re going to work out. Together. I promised I’d help and I’m going to do that.”

 

“And I appreciate it, Stiles, but you don’t have to,” she said. “I’ll get a restraining order. I’ll deal with things the regular, non-supernatural pack way. I’ll be okay.”

 

“Look, I know what the cops in this town are like — they’ll take forever to file a report on Matthew. They’re too busy dealing with other things, like … mysterious creatures and phenomenons that they can’t explain.”

 

“Then I’ll file it in New York,” she answered, not even smiling at his crack about the supernatural. “I just want him out of my life. For good.”

 

“Let me _help_ you,” Stiles emphasised. “I don’t want you to get hurt by this psycho.”

 

“He’s just a man,” Lydia reminded him. “No super strength, no Kitsune belt. He doesn’t even have a baseball bat. He always hated baseball.”

 

Stiles cracked a smile, knowing she was trying to reassure him, but there was something he wasn’t telling her.

 

He couldn’t tell her that he was so eager to help her because if she filed a police report in New York about Matthew, that meant she would have to go back to New York.

 

Selfishly, he wanted to help her as much as he could here, in Beacon Hills, so that she could stay until at least the end of the week.

 

He’d only just got her back. He didn’t want to lose her again.

 

“Stiles,” Lydia sighed. “It’s just —”

 

She stopped. Stiles pulled up outside her house. “What?”

 

“He’s here,” she said, pointing to the driveway of the house.

 

Matthew stood leaning up against the pillar of the tall brick wall in front of Lydia’s house. When he saw them in the Jeep, he straightened up.

 

“Great,” she muttered. “Just great.”

 

“Lydia,” he said suddenly. “Just … play along. Okay?”

 

“What? Stiles, what are you going to do? Stiles — where the hell are you going?”

 

Her words were lost on him as he got out of the Jeep and approached Matthew, his heart pounding with every step. He was just thankful that no supernatural creatures were around to hear how freaking nervous he was.

 

“Look, man,” he said, walking up to Matthew, “you need to stay away from her. This has to end.”

 

“Look,  _man_ ,” Matthew mimicked, turning his glare onto Stiles. “I don’t understand why you’re getting involved. Again. So, you’re some cop? A bodyguard? Some lovesick puppy following her around?”

 

Lydia came up behind them, breathless and panicked. Stiles felt a flood of warmth that she seemed concerned for him. He didn’t feel like that warmth would be there for him in about, oh, two seconds’ time.

 

“Not quite. See, I’m actually her boyfriend,” Stiles told him, jutting out his chin in the most defiant way he could manage. He tried not to let Matthew see that his lower lip was trembling.

 

Matthew’s expression changed.

 

“Her _boyfriend_?”

 

“Look, yesterday when I saw you, Lydia didn’t want you to know about me because of your history,” Stiles lied, “and she didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But I have no personal history with you, Matthew, and I have no problems with hurting your feelings. I told you already. I’m an FBI agent _and_ I have the Sheriff on speed-dial. You know what the right thing is to do.”

 

Instead of answering Stiles, Matthew turned to look at Lydia. For just a second, he looked hurt.

 

“He’s your boyfriend? You’re _with_ him? You said that you were just friends!”

 

Lydia’s face softened, but then — to Stiles’s delight and sheer disbelief — she stepped up to Stiles, and slipped her hand into his. Her fingers curled around his and his heart pounded inside his chest from all kinds of nerves and incredulousness; it was like a tornado inside him.

 

“I’m sorry, Matthew, I was just trying to protect your feelings,” she said evenly. “I don’t love you anymore. I love … I love him.”

 

“And I love her,” Stiles added, feeling a rush from saying the words aloud — even if they were totally in the wrong context, and he knew Lydia’s words just came from the story he’d technically fabricated.

 

It didn’t matter. He was telling the truth.

 

Even after all these years, he still freaking loved her just as much — if not more — than he had when he was in high school. There was no denying it. It had always been Lydia.

 

She was the reason why it hadn’t worked out with Cora Hale.

 

She was the reason why it hadn’t worked out with Malia.

 

Malia had eventually become sick of him wondering out loud what Lydia was doing, if she was okay, if she was coping, if she had math next or Biology. He’d started to annoy _himself_ , and hadn’t been surprised at all when she’d broken up with him. She’d told him that they could still be friends, and they had thankfully maintained that friendship, despite just how much he’d sucked at being her boyfriend.

 

It had been Lydia for as long as he could remember. Throughout most of his life, really. In high school — especially in their junior year. That was when the crush had turned into something more, but Stiles had known he was in love with her in their senior year, when every time she avoided speaking to him in the hallway crushed him just a little bit more. But it had also made him realise just how much he cared for her, how desperate he was to protect her however he could.

 

In college, he hadn’t dated much — a few girls, but nothing serious. In D.C., he claimed he was too busy and “work-oriented” to date anyone, no matter how many times his partner tried to set him up with his girlfriend’s friends.

 

He couldn’t ever feel interested in anyone else. 

 

It had always been Lydia.

 

And it was _still_ Lydia.

 

But this wasn’t about him.

 

This was about Lydia and the jackass she’d once called a fiancé.

 

“This doesn’t change anything, Lydia,” Matthew replied.

 

“I’m getting a restraining order against you if I see you ever again,” Lydia said. She squeezed Stiles’s hand. Without thinking, he squeezed hers back, like she’d asked a question and he’d answered it. It was for reassurance too. His squeeze meant: _You’re doing great. Keep going._

 

“I still love you,” Matthew told her. He sounded helpless now.

 

“But you ruined us,” Lydia reminded him. “You ruined all of it.”

 

“This isn’t the end,” he replied, shaking his head.

 

Slowly, Matthew started to walk away. He seemed so defeated, Stiles almost felt sorry for the guy. Almost. Once he was a safe distance away — climbing into his car with a forlorn expression on his face — Stiles turned to Lydia. He didn’t drop her hand. For the role, of course.

 

“You’re staying at mine tonight,” he told her. “You can’t stay here. You might get hurt.”

 

“Stiles, I’ll be fine.”

 

“Lydia, he literally just said _this isn’t the end_ ,” Stiles reminded her. “He’ll come back for you as soon as he thinks you’ll be alone. Look, if you don’t want to stay at mine, I’ll ask Kira. Or I can ask Malia —”

 

Her expression changed rapidly. “I’ll stay at yours. Let me get some things together, okay?”

 

He nodded. He knew that she would walk away and he would have to drop her hand, but he wasn’t quite ready to. He squeezed it as platonically and reassuringly as he could manage under the circumstances, and considering how fast his heart was beating.

 

“Okay,” he agreed.

 

She let go, but not before she pursed her lips into a soft smile.

 

And in that moment, it didn’t matter if she knew the truth or not.

 

Lydia Martin was his friend again.

 

Who was he to risk ruining that?


	12. Interrupted

Lydia watched as Stiles struggled to make the bed with clean sheets, managing to fit one corner of the sheet on, before the other side pinged off and lay crumpled in the middle of the bed.

 

He cursed with frustration and she considered just watching for entertainment purposes, but she stepped forwards and tucked the edge of the sheet over the corner of the mattress. He looked up at her, smiled, and worked on the other corners while she held one down in place.

 

Finally, they’d managed to fit the sheet onto the mattress. He reached for the comforter and laid it out onto the bed, then arranged the pillows neatly. He grabbed a few blankets from underneath the bed and placed them on top of the comforter.

 

“In case you get cold,” he said.

 

“It’s July,” she reminded him, “in California.”

 

He nodded. “You’ve got a point, but I’ll leave them there just in case.”

 

“Well,” she said, “thank you.”

 

“You need anything else?” he asked. He looked strangely nervous, avoiding looking at her.

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

“Great,” he answered. “You can just put your things down there. Or on the bed. Or wherever you like — go crazy.”

 

She placed her bag on the floor. “Stiles, you okay?”

 

He nodded. “Yeah, this is just … weird.”

 

That, she could easily agree with. She hadn’t thought she’d be spending the night at the Stilinskis’ house during her short trip home, but there she was, standing in Stiles’s old room, with her overnight bag laying on the floor at her feet.

 

“So, my dad’s working tonight,” he said, “you want to order some pizza or something?”

 

She nodded. Good. Something to do. Something to talk about. She wasn’t sure why the situation felt so … _weird._ It was just Stiles. She’d been to his house hundreds of times before. She’d been in his room before — she’d never slept in his room before, but she’d been _in_ his room before. In fact, she’d been there only a day ago.

 

Besides, it wasn’t like Stiles would be sleeping in there as well. He’d volunteered to take the couch, despite Lydia’s objections, and would be sleeping a whole floor below Lydia.

 

So, why did everything feel so … _charged_?

 

“Yes,” she answered, shaking away the thoughts in her head. She smiled at him. At Stiles. Her friend. “Let’s order pizza. Maybe we could invite Scott.”

 

Stiles grimaced. “He’s working tonight. Some … emergency, or something.” “Kira?”

 

“She’s working too,” Stiles told her.

 

She opened her mouth, ready to suggest Malia, but she didn’t particularly want to spend her evening third-wheeling Stiles and Malia. Even if Malia _was_ dating someone else, she felt like Stiles might use the opportunity to show her how he felt about her, and Lydia didn’t know if she could stomach that. Not after such a long, exhausting day.

 

“Okay, well …” she said, trailing off.

 

“Malia’s busy too,” Stiles said quickly. “I asked everyone.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Lydia couldn’t help but feel disappointed and a little bit offended that Stiles had already thought to desperately invite _anyone_ to join their evening. He clearly didn’t want to be alone with her.

 

“Just us,” Stiles added, like she hadn’t been able to figure that out. “But then again, you do math; you could probably work that one out for yourself.”

 

She forced a smile. There was no reason why this shouldn’t be totally normal and casual. Just two friends, who’d once kissed, sharing pizza and sleeping at the same house. Not _together_ , but at the same house. There was no way that was weird.

 

No way.

 

The two of them looked at each other and smiled awkwardly at each other, until Stiles eventually led the way from his old bedroom, down the stairs and into the living room.

 

Lydia tried to relax. It was just _Stiles._

 

The same dork she’d been friends with in high school — the very same one she’d kissed. God! Why couldn’t she stop _thinking_ about that?!

 

“You want a drink?” he asked.

 

“Yes,” she blurted out, sounding decidedly uncool. When he glanced at her, she smiled hastily.

 

Jesus. When had she become so extremely lame? Stiles was currently more relaxed than her and he always seemed to be buzzed about something.

 

They walked through to the kitchen, where she leaned against the island counter and tried to steady her heartbeat by thinking of totally boring, heart-stabilising things.

 

Zeta functions. Trivial zeros. Fractions. Algorithms. Improper fractions. Polynomials—

 

“Coffee?” Stiles asked her, shooting her a weird look.

 

“Sure,” she answered.

 

“Why don’t you tell me a little more about Matthew?” Stiles suggested. “It might help with the investigation.”

 

She smiled — this time, it wasn’t forced. “You mean the investigation where I get a restraining order against him like a normal person, and you continue to think he’s an asshole?”

 

“I still can’t believe you dated that jerk,” he answered, frowning. “Why did you say yes to him when he proposed?”

 

“Look, Matthew may have his flaws but he had _some_ redeeming qualities, too. And he hadn’t cheated on me multiple times back then,” she explained. “Honestly, after Allison died, he was the first person who made me feel semi-alive again.”

 

He looked at her, but he didn’t have that same pitying look most people did when she did talk about as Allison — as rare as that was. He just looked like he knew _exactly_ what she meant; he understood her. Which was almost as rare as her talking about Allison in the first place.

 

She looked back at him, remembering all those times in high school when they’d just … _understood_ each other. Sometimes without even saying a word. She remembered how close they’d been. How she might have considered him one of her best friends once. They used to tell each other things. She used to confide in him, and sometimes even when she didn’t, he’d know the right thing to say.

 

Inspired by her memories, she continued.

 

“I never thanked you for your friendship in our junior year,” she said, glancing away for just a second. It felt strangely intimate, despite their surroundings being completely normal. “We made a good team, didn’t we?”

 

“Oh yeah,” he replied, nodding seriously. “The best. You know, Scott _thought_ he was in charge, but we ran the show.”

 

She smiled, almost relieved he hadn’t taken the opportunity to move the conversation somewhere deeper, maybe somewhere she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to go.

 

“We did,” she agreed softly.

 

He slid the cup of coffee across the counter to her. “I’ll order that pizza now.”

 

“Sure,” she said.

 

As he left the room to make the call, she realised she’d inadvertently relaxed. Stiles kind of had that effect on her. By the time he came back, she’d finished half her coffee. She brightened when she saw him, grateful for the company.

 

“I should probably call my mom soon and let her know where I am,” she said. “I think Eric gets out of the hospital tomorrow, so hopefully she’ll avoid this whole Matthew mess.”

 

“How’s he doing?”

 

“Good,” she said, nodding. “As good as he can be, I mean.”

 

“I’m glad,” Stiles replied. “Hey, you want to watch TV? There’s an old ‘80s movie on about a teenage werewolf. I thought it’d be hilarious.”

 

“Hilarious?”

 

Stiles shrugged. “In an ironic way.”

 

Lydia smiled, following him over to the couch. They sat beside each other, oddly formal, and Stiles turned on the TV. He scrolled through the channels until he found the old werewolf movie.

 

They settled down together and by the time the doorbell rang thirty minutes later with the pizza delivery, they had both relaxed physically as well as mentally in each other’s company. Lydia had kicked off her shoes and curled her legs underneath her, reclining more into the couch, while Stiles had opened up a beer and, when he’d sat back down again, had inched ever so slightly closer to Lydia.

 

He didn’t think she’d noticed, but she had.

 

“Pizza’s here,” Stiles announced, getting up from the couch and heading over to the door. Lydia waited until he returned, two boxes piled in his arms and a litre of soda in one hand.

 

“You got two?”

 

“I didn’t know what you liked,” he told her, setting them down on the coffee table in front of the couch. “So I just got two.”

 

“Oh,” she answered, smiling. “Great.”

 

Stiles opened the boxes of pizza and she reached for a slice. He reached for one too, pausing the movie.

 

“So, I always wondered. What kind of banshee feelings did you experience in senior year?”

 

“What?”

 

“You must have had them,” Stiles continued. “People were still dying.”

 

“The Nogitsune,” she told him gently. “I could feel you dying.”

 

His shoulders visibly slumped. “You — you could?”

 

“I used to — um,” She paused to collect her thoughts. “I used to check up on you. During that time, I mean. Everything with Allison was still so fresh and I know I wasn’t speaking to you guys then, but I still cared. A lot. I had to make sure you were okay.”

 

“You did?” he asked, smiling at her.

 

She nodded. “Of course. And I spent a lot of my time researching it — just in case Kira’s mom couldn’t help. I wanted to be able to step in if you needed me, but you didn’t, so it was okay.”

 

“Lydia,” he said firmly, “we needed you. We always needed you.”

 

She didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse, but she felt relief that it had been said.

 

“I think I might be feeling better about Allison,” she told him. “For so long, I bottled it up. I didn’t want to talk about her or even think about her, but seeing how happy Scott is … and seeing how everybody’s moved on, I’m starting to realise that it’s okay to be okay.”

 

“She would want you to be happy too,” Stiles told her. “And she’s still with us, even if it isn’t physically.”

 

She nodded, knowing that, if ghosts were a believable phenomenon anywhere, it would be in Beacon Hills.

 

“You’ve helped me a lot — with the Allison stuff,” she told him.

 

“I have?”

 

“Yeah — and Scott,” she replied. “That’s why I need to figure out the other mess in my life. I need to go back to New York, Stiles. I need to file the restraining order, figure out what I’m going to do with my job — with a boss who sent me home because my ex was being psychotic — and … just what I’m going to do.”

 

“When are you going to go?”

 

She smiled. “There’s a flight tomorrow evening. At around seven.”

 

“Oh,” he answered, swallowing hard. She could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “That’s soon.”

 

“It needs to be now,” she said, straightening up. “I need to end this with him. I need to let him know that he can’t control me anymore. I can’t go back to being that girl in high school.”

 

“Lydia, you are not that girl in high school,” Stiles told her. “You’re so much more than that. In fact, you always have been.”

 

“Stiles —” she began, her voice catching.

 

Maybe she could just … _tell_ him. But what would she tell him? What _was_ there to say? He was in love with another girl. Whether that other girl was with someone else or not, they could be soulmates. Who was she to interrupt that?

 

He looked at her, smiling. “What?”

 

She leaned back, away from him, and released the breath she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding. She needed to get away from the intensity of this conversation — she might say something she would come to regret. She picked up a piece of pizza.

 

“Tell me what happened between you and Malia,” she said, knowing that the subject change was clumsy and obvious, but not caring.

 

He _couldn’t_ know what had been on the tip of her tongue.

 

And that was … _I wish we could go back to high school. I would do things so differently. I would tell you how I felt. I would kiss you again. I would let you in, rather than push you away. I would ask you to stay. I would stop being such a coward, scared of falling in love — truly falling in love._

 

She couldn’t say any of it.

 

She was leaving tomorrow. That wasn’t fair on either of them.

 

“Malia and me?” Stiles asked, frowning. He leaned back too, but if he was annoyed that she’d broken the spell between them, he didn’t show it. He scratched his chin thoughtfully.

 

“Yeah,” she said. “You broke up when we were seniors. Right?”

 

“Right,” Stiles answered. His cheeks flushed pink. “It was just … mutual. Wasn’t working out. The whole — you know — were-coyote thing. We had so many things — we didn’t have a lot in common. My favourite food is pizza, hers was deer. The whole ... species thing. That kind of ... general ... thing.”

  
“Stiles,” Lydia said, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips, “why are you being so weird?”

 

He sighed loudly, closing his eyes momentarily. When he opened them, he looked right at her.

 

Then, something shifted. She saw it. He shook his head, smiling sheepishly.

 

“Things were just complicated between us,” he told her. “In the end, it was just for the best.”

 

She thought there must be more, but she couldn’t exactly force it out of him. He was clearly still affected by the break-up; she felt guilty for even bringing it up in the first place.

 

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I know …”

 

She’d been about to say _I know how you feel about her_ , but she didn’t know if he needed the reminder of his feelings for Malia. She wasn’t sure how much he’d come to terms with it yet, or if he’d accepted that he was still in love with her. Maybe he knew about the other guy! Maybe that was why he seemed so down.

 

“I know that must have been hard,” she finished slowly, thoughtfully. “If things didn’t work out between you.”

 

He looked back at her and cocked his head, his eyes narrowing. She knew instantly that was his thinking face, but he didn’t begin a thought. He grabbed another slice of pizza and shifted so he faced the TV.

 

“Should we get back to watching the teen wolf movie?” he suggested.

 

She nodded, figuring he didn’t want to talk about Malia anymore. “Yeah,” she answered, reaching for another slice of pizza as well. She curled her legs underneath her.

 

She couldn’t understand why she felt so _strange._ Being in Stiles’s house, sitting next to him on the couch — so close to each other but simultaneously so far away — and all she could feel was how hard and fast her heart was pounding inside her chest. All she could think about was where he was sitting in relation to her, if he’d moved his arm because he wanted to be closer to her, or if he’d been uncomfortable and had needed to move.

 

In her mind, she analysed everything. Every single movement. She couldn’t concentrate on the movie because all she could think about was Stiles freaking Stilinski, sitting next to her, distracting her.

 

What was _wrong_ with her?

 

He was in love with someone else.

 

And, in _addition_ to that, she was planning on leaving Beacon Hills the very next day to file a restraining order against her ex-boyfriend! Surely there was some kind of rule in place that if you were going through a situation like that, you shouldn’t be thinking about someone else.

  
But suddenly, she’d become all too aware of their proximity to each other and how she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

 

She glanced across at him, only to find him looking back at her. He smiled at her softly and she felt her heart pound even more with his eyes focused on her.

 

“Stiles,” she began, breathless. She was going to tell him. She was just going to freaking _tell_ him  — what did she have to lose? She had no secrets anymore. She didn’t even want to hold up the wall anymore.

  
With him, the wall had well and truly fallen.

  
It had the very moment she’d seen him again, standing on the Sheriff’s porch.

  
She cocked her head, hopeful. “Do you think there’s a chance —”

  
And then it happened.

  
A catastrophically loud _smash_ echoed through the room as the window beside the couch, just a yard or two away from where they were sitting, smashed and shattered around them.

  
Shards of glass flew everywhere, in every which direction, and before Lydia’s mind could compute what was going on, she felt the reassuring and protective presence of Stiles.

  
Of course.

  
He’d reacted as an FBI agent would. He’d thrown himself on top of her, shielding her from the glass showering around them.

  
All she could feel was Stiles, his arms over her protectively, and all she could see was the dark material of his T-shirt surrounding her. Without thinking, she reached out and clutched a handful of his T-shirt, pulling him closer, willing him to stay exactly where he was.

  
“Lydia —”

  
She heard his voice and she lifted her head, ready to listen.

  
“Listen —” he continued. But he kept stopping. She wondered what was going on. “Listen to me, don’t move, okay? Just stay here.”

  
“What the hell is going on?” she asked.

  
She didn’t even know if he’d heard. His T-shirt still shielded her and her voice was muffled as she buried her face into his chest, reaching for him, wanting him to stay.

  
But then he was gone, and she was clutching at air around her. She opened her eyes and lifted her head, still curled up on the sofa as she felt the breeze from outside, through the space where the window had been.

  
Stiles was gone.

  
She crouched on the couch, glancing around to locate him.

  
“Stiles?”

  
“Lydia,” She could hear his voice, but she couldn’t see him.

  
“What? Where are you? Stiles, what the _hell_ is going on?” she hissed, irritated that he hadn’t told her what was happening.

  
She suspected they were under some kind of supernatural attack. The pack hadn’t mentioned anything about some kind of villain in town, but maybe they hadn’t wanted to worry her. It wasn’t like she could _do_ anything anyway. And she wasn’t even sure she was part of the pack.

  
“Lydia,” Stiles’s voice came from across the room. “Call Scott. Tell him to come here _immediately_ and bring the others.”

  
Her phone was in her pocket. She grabbed it and frantically started to call Scott.

  
“Why?” she asked. “What’s going on? You’d better tell me right now, Stiles, or I’ll —”

  
“It’s Matthew,” Stiles explained. “He’s outside, he’s pissed off, and he’s got some kind of weapon. I don’t know what it is — if it’s serious. I can’t tell. Lydia, just ... Call. Scott.”

  
Lydia didn’t waste another second. With her heart hammering, she did exactly as she had been instructed.


	13. Stiles's Job

Stiles knew that, above everything, he needed to keep Lydia safe.

 

Matthew was there for _her_.

 

He was there to hurt _her_ , to scare _her_ , to intimidate _her_.

 

She was his priority, but he couldn’t do it alone.

 

He’d smashed in the window to the living room, but he hadn’t climbed inside. He was playing a different game — a longer game. A game that Stiles didn’t understand. Yet.

 

Stiles was terrified for Lydia’s sake — how long had she had to put up with his behaviour for? — but he knew he needed to remain calm. This was his _job._ He was trained for this kind of situation and he knew his first port of call: the police department. He needed back-up.

 

He knew his dad was working, and if Noah got a call to dispatch to Sycamore Avenue, he’d drop everything to be there.

 

It was Stiles’s job to keep Lydia safe and to keep calm until then, to play Matthew’s game — whatever it may be — just to avoid him harming a hair on her head.

 

But he didn’t know where he was.

 

After Matthew had smashed in the front window, Stiles had heard him running across the yard. He thought he’d heard him run around to the back of the house, climbing the tall gate that separated the front yard from the back, but he’d heard no movement since.

 

With the living room quiet, he reached for his phone and dialled the Sheriff’s station. He didn’t recognise the voice of the person who answered, but he informed them of the location and the situation Stiles had somehow found himself in. The member of staff told Stiles they’d be there as fast as they could, but Stiles knew exactly how that department worked.

 

It was crucial that Scott arrived soon.

 

“Stiles?”

 

He heard Lydia’s voice calling him from the living room.

 

He’d positioned himself in the kitchen, keeping watch and attempting to suss out where Matthew had disappeared to — _surely_ he hadn’t finished and left — but at the sound of Lydia’s voice, he crawled back into the living room.

 

“Lydia,” he said, “I’m here.”

 

“Where? I can’t see you,” she said.

 

He straightened up a little, bobbing his head for just a second so she could see him. Maybe that meant Matthew had as well, but he wanted to reassure her where he was.

 

She was crouched behind the couch, hiding from the sight of the window. She held her knees in place and he felt everything inside him melt as he saw her.

 

Nothing seemed to matter but getting to her, so he crawled over to her and took her shoulders in his hands, steadying her.

 

“Lydia, it’s okay, you’re okay,” he told her, his voice firm and calm. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay? Lydia, focus on me. Focus on my voice. You’re gonna be okay.”

 

“What does he have?” she asked, lifting her eyes to meet his. Her mascara had smeared under her eyes, her lipstick a little bit smudged.

 

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But don’t worry. It’s gonna be okay.”

 

“He has _something_ , Stiles — nothing about this is okay!”

 

“The police are on the way,” he told her, “and so is Scott. Scott will round up the others. We’re going to have back-up. If we don’t, I’ll do something.”

 

“You are _not_ going out there and facing that guy!” she said, shaking her head. “Stiles. You can’t. You could get hurt.”

 

She looked terrified, as well as worried. He looked at her, feeling his love for her flowing through him. He would do anything it took to keep her safe. Because if she died, he would go out of his freaking mind.

 

“I need to keep you safe,” he told her. “It’s my job.”

 

“Stiles —”

 

“And my biggest priority,” he continued. He smiled at her softly. “It always has been.”

 

She cocked her head, her face softening as she looked at him. He watched as she gave him that same exact look she had when he’d told her he would go back into the high school to search all night, all the way back in their junior year.

 

That look had driven him crazy for weeks. What had it _meant_? He’d agonised over it, thinking that he’d _never_ looked at one of his friends in that way. He’d never looked at Scott in that way, and he loved Scott a _lot._

 

He just wasn’t _in love_ with Scott.

 

But he didn’t have time to spend forever agonising over the way Lydia Martin looked at him, he had to find Matthew. He squeezed her shoulders, wishing he could do more to comfort her.

 

“This is going to end,” he promised her, “tonight. I promise.”

 

“Stiles —”

 

He stood up. “Just stay here, stay covered, try not to draw attention to yourself.”

 

“God, no,” she said. “I’m not going to _hide._ Where’s your baseball bat?”

 

“My baseball bat? — Lydia, this guy is out for _blood_.”

 

“And we’re going to stop him, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit here and hide, waiting for Scott and the others to show up,” she insisted. “He stalked me for the last six months, Stiles. You’re right. This ends _now_.”

 

“Lydia —”

 

But it was Lydia’s turn to ignore him. She got to her feet.

 

“I’m not going to let anybody else risk their life for me,” she told him.

 

“Lydia! Scott will be here in _minutes —_ we just need to lay low until then. This isn’t about letting him win, this is about waiting until someone more qualified can help.”

 

“ _You’re_ qualified,” she pointed out.

 

“I don’t have anything on me,” he told her. “I don’t have my badge or my gun — I have absolutely no authority or power in this situation. Right now, in this situation, we’re civilians and what we need to do is keep ourselves safe and wait for the professionals to arrive.”

 

“Where’s your baseball bat?”

 

“I am _not_ letting you —”

 

“Is it in your room?”

 

“No! Lydia!”

 

But Lydia was gone, marching over to the stairs with a purpose. Stiles waited for a few seconds — torn between feeling extremely turned on and also furious that she would go against an FBI agent’s orders so _defiantly_ — before he stormed after her.

 

She was already in his room when he arrived upstairs, rummaging through his things. She flipped past the yearbook and past his textbooks on lycanthropy, then rummaged around in his closet until she located the baseball bat.

 

“Lydia — come on,” he pleaded.

 

She tore past him without even stopping to acknowledge him, and he ended up following her down the stairs.

 

“Where is he?” she asked, at least four steps in front of him.

 

“I don’t know — I lost him.”

 

“You _lost_ him?” she repeated. “How can you _lose_ a grown man with some kind of weapon in his hand? In your _front yard_?”

 

“He smashed the window in, then disappeared,” Stiles informed her. “Look, that’s why I was in the kitchen, I was on surveillance. And I _really_ don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out there —”

 

“I’m going,” Lydia announced.

 

She opened the front door, glancing back at him. There was a fierceness in her eyes and Stiles knew without a doubt that she could protect herself. He didn’t doubt her ability to kick ass.

 

“Try and stop me,” she added, disappearing through the door.

 

He started to weigh up his options, thinking about the risks and safety of his own life if he went out there, but then one thought crossed his mind: Lydia.

 

And nothing else mattered.

 

He tore after her, his eyes adjusting to the darkness outside as he stepped onto the porch, and he ran until he found her. She’d only made it to the side of the house, holding the bat like a shield, ready to strike.

 

“Lydia,” he whispered. “It’s me. Stiles.”

 

She turned around, ready to hit him, then pulled back at the last second. He leapt backwards, holding out his arms to defend himself.

 

“Jesus _Christ_.”

 

“Sorry!” she whispered, wincing. “I thought you were him.”

 

“No, he’s —” Stiles stopped, slowly glancing away from Lydia.

 

A movement had caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Just a tiny movement, but he’d been trained. That was all he needed to look for.

 

Matthew was behind the gate that led through to the back yard. The gate was tall and obstructed Stiles’s view, but Stiles could see through the tiny cracks in the wooden panelling, and he’d noticed movement.

 

Matthew was on the other side, and he was listening to them.

 

Stiles’s heart raced. He turned to Lydia.

 

“Get behind me,” he instructed her.

 

“But I can —”

 

“I know you can,” he told her, his voice low and quiet, “but I don’t want you to, okay? I can’t let you get hurt. I can’t. So get behind me. Now.”

 

Without a word, Lydia stepped behind him. He could feel the heat of her body behind him, the smooth touch of her fingers as she passed him the bat like a baton in a relay.

 

He took it from her soundlessly, his heart hammering still, as he tightened his grip around the bottom.

 

He stepped forwards, just a couple of steps, and reached for the latch on the gate. With trembling hands, he lifted the latch.

 

And then, from behind him, came the deafening roar of a werewolf.

 

Stiles collapsed back against Lydia with relief, feeling her hand slip into his free one, and he tightened his grip around her fingers as Scott, Malia and Liam raced past them in a blur of teeth, claws and roaring.

 

Scott unlatched the gate, standing his full height, curling and uncurling his claws. Matthew stood on the other side, holding what appeared to be a BB gun in his right hand.

 

He dropped it to the ground, lifting his hands up in a surrender motion and in pure terror.

 

Scott roared. Malia looked ready to pounce. Liam rolled his neck, snarling a little.

 

“What the —” Matthew began.

 

Scott roared again and he jumped backwards.

 

“Jesus Christ!” Matthew continued. “Lydia, what the hell is going on? Lydia, help!”

 

Stiles felt Lydia’s hand in his, stiffening as Matthew said her name. He glanced back at her and she looked up at him.

 

“Show him what you can do,” he told her.

 

“But I can’t control it —”

 

Stiles had been reading up on banshees. “Use your hands to channel it.”

 

“They don’t need me.”

 

But Stiles nodded. “Yes, they do. You’re part of the pack. You should fight as well. Besides, if he sees what you’re capable of, he’ll never bother you again.”

 

“I could hurt him,” she said. “I could kill him. I could become a monster.”

 

“You’re not a monster,” he told her. “You’re a banshee. And you can control it. I _know_ you can.”

 

Lydia dropped his hand and he watched as she walked over to where the pack stood, side-by-side. Scott stepped aside to let Lydia through, and Lydia squared herself up to the bully who had been dictating her life for however long. Too long.

 

“Scream, Lydia,” Scott urged her.

 

“Yeah,” Malia added, “scream. I just want to see this loser getting his ass kicked.”

 

But Matthew grinned. “I used to make you scream all the time, Lydia. All the freaking time.”

 

Stiles lunged towards him, bat in hand, but Scott simply held out an arm to stop him.

 

“Sweetheart, you should cover your ears; you could never make me scream like this.”

 

And then, she screamed, placing her hands in front of her to guide it.

 

Stiles covered his ears, feeling himself getting knocked backwards by the force of the ringing scream, but not as much as Matthew, who was flung into the back yard with such force, he crashed into a few old flowerpots. Dust fell all over him and he coughed loudly, staring up at Lydia with horror.

 

“Leave me — and my friends — alone,” Lydia instructed him. “Never come back.”

 

Matthew scrambled to his feet, a little unsteady. He looked like a cartoon character with stars surrounding his head come to life, swaying to and fro from the force and shock of it all.

 

“You’re a — you’re all —” Matthew began. He shook his head. “Stay away from _you_? Stay away from _me_! If I’d have known … I’d —”

 

But the sight of Scott bearing his teeth caused him to stop talking, and instead to run past them all, straight out onto the street.

 

The five remaining people — of various species — stood between the gate to the Stilinskis’ front and back yard, unsure where to go from there. Finally, Stiles pushed past the barricade Scott had formed to stop him from hitting Matthew right in the jaw, and ran over to where Lydia stood, grasping hold of her hands.

 

“You did it,” he said to her, beaming. “He’s gone.”

 

“He is?”

 

“You beat him,” Stiles said. He felt immensely proud of her.

 

“It wasn’t me,” she answered. “It was these guys too.”

 

“No, Lydia,” He smiled at her, amazed by her. “It was you. It was all you. You controlled it.”

 

“I just —” She stopped to shake her head.

 

“Uh, Stiles?” Malia’s voice broke in between them. Stiles pulled away from Lydia hastily, not wanting Lydia to think he was taking advantage of this moment between them, to look at his friend.

 

“What’s up?”

 

“I think your dad just got here,” she said. “I just heard car doors.”

 

“So did I,” Scott added. “I can talk to him.”

 

Stiles stepped forwards. “No, it’s okay. I should explain to him what happened.”

 

“You stay here with Lydia,” Scott said firmly, raising one eyebrow. “I’ll go talk to your dad.”

 

Stiles nodded, grateful that Scott knew the exact moment he needed to give them some privacy. He gestured for Lydia to follow him inside, opening the porch door at the back and leading her through to the kitchen. Without a word, he filled up a glass of water and passed it over to her.

 

“Here,” he said. “You don’t want your throat to get hoarse.”

 

She took it and smiled. “Thanks.”

 

He wondered what to say to her. He was brimming with pride. The same amount of pride and love he’d felt for her when she’d thrown himself on top of him to protect him and Scott at that awful motel in their junior year. Then, he’d been amazed by her bravery too.

 

“You were brave back there.”

 

“Stiles,” She rolled her eyes. “It was a BB gun.”

 

“I don’t mean the physicality of the weapon,” he told her, “I mean, you stood up to him. Scott and Malia would have protected you from anything, but they couldn’t have _done_ anything to him just for holding a BB gun. It _had_ to be you. You’ve spent the past however long running from him and you stood up for yourself tonight. I’m proud of you.”

 

She suppressed a smile, looking away from him. “Yeah, well,” she said, “it was no big deal.”

 

“Lydia,” He _had_ to try and make her see. “It was.”

 

She straightened up, stepping back from him. “I guess I don’t need to stay at your house tonight. Matthew’s gone.”

 

Stiles mulled that over, strangely disappointed. “Yeah, I guess not. You want me to drive you home?”

 

“Maybe we could finish the movie,” she suggested.

 

He nodded, brightening. “Okay.” “And since Malia and Scott are here, we could invite them to stay and hang out,” she continued, her eyes on him.

 

It _felt_ like she was looking for a specific answer, but he didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable about staying at his for another few hours. Maybe she was searching for the extra company and the extra layers of security.

 

“I’ll ask them,” he answered warily. “Although it’ll be kind of cold in the living room. I’m not paying for those windows, by the way.”

 

“You think _I’m_ going to?”

 

“No,” he countered. “What do you think about sending the bill to Matthew? You’ve got his home address, right?”

 

“You really think he’ll pay for your dad’s window?”

 

“It’s worth a shot,” Stiles answered, shrugging.

 

She rolled her eyes at him, hiding a smile. He saw it.

 

“You want a coffee?” Stiles offered. Then added, “Or alcohol.”

 

“Wine,” Lydia answered immediately. “Wine would be nice.”

 

Stiles seemed to remember his dad coming home with a bottle of wine the night before and he was sure Noah wouldn’t mind if he … borrowed some. He signalled that he’d be back momentarily, before he disappeared into the foyer of the house, where they kept a wine rack. He located an expensive-looking bottle of wine and brought it back through to the kitchen to Lydia.

 

He reached for two glasses, filled hers almost to the top and his halfway. He hesitated, but didn’t pull out more for Scott and Malia. They couldn’t get drunk anyway. What was the point in wasting good alcohol on them?

 

He passed a glass over to her and she took a large sip.

 

She paused when she realised he was watching her, amused.

 

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just been … a long week. More like a long six months, if I’m being totally honest.”

 

“He’s gone now,” Stiles assured her. “And he won’t come back. You kicked his ass back there.”

 

She smiled. “Thanks. I know you were worried about me.”

 

He broke eye contact with her for a second, smiling as well.

 

He just … wished he could tell her. Tell how just how much he’d worried about her — back there with Matthew, but also over the past ten years, not knowing what she was doing, and in their junior and senior year too. He’d _always_ worried about her. He’d known that she could handle herself, but he’d always wished he could be by her side anyway.

 

“Well …”

 

He reached out and playfully, lightly, punched her upper arm. In his mind, he chastised himself for always managing to act like such a loser around her.

 

She raised an eyebrow. “Well …?”

 

“Well,” he finished. She wouldn’t let him get away with not finishing the sentence. “I always do worry about you.”

 

Before she could reply, he continued.

 

“So, I guess now that Matthew’s gone, there’s no rush for you to head back to New York, right?”

 

Lydia cocked her head at him, giving him that half-smile that he knew from experience meant she was unsure how to react.

 

“I’m still going to go back tomorrow, Stiles,” she said. “He may be gone, but there are still things I need to do in New York.”

 

He stared back at her, feeling like his heart had dropped out of him.

 

“But …” He shook his head. “You only just …”

 

“I need to figure out if New York is my home,” she told him. Without warning, she reached for his hand, her fingers curling around his. It was a movement he remembered well from high school.

 

He remembered how his heart used to hammer inside him whenever she grabbed onto his hand, and it did then too.

 

“I’m sorry,” she added for some reason. Maybe his emotions were written all over his face.

 

He didn’t know what to say to her.

 

He knew it wasn’t his choice; it was hers. And it was something she _had_ to do. How could he try to stop her? How could he tell her how he felt about her when she was getting her life back on track? How could he possibly disrupt her life more by telling her how he felt?

 

He forced a smile, hoping it looked genuine.

 

“Of course,” he said. “Do what you have to, Lydia.”

 

But he wished he didn’t have to say those words. He wished he could ask her to stay. He wished he could tell her how he felt. He wished he could tell her that he didn’t want her to leave, not again.

 

He felt like he’d only just found her again.

 

How could he _already_ be losing her?


	14. The Goodbye

Lydia watched as her mom kissed Eric on the cheek, before she pulled up the blankets on the bed up to his chin and patted his shoulder.

 

“Get some sleep, honey,” Natalie whispered, before she caught sight of Lydia in the doorway and crept over to her.

 

Lydia stepped back, allowing her mom to leave the room and shut the door behind her to let Eric rest. He’d been released from hospital that morning with the all clear, but he was exhausted from the medication the hospital had given him and the doctors had advised him to rest a lot. As soon as he’d arrived home from the hospital, Natalie had whisked him away upstairs and practically forced him to go to bed, despite it being two in the afternoon.

 

Lydia had her bags packed, waiting in the hallway, and when Natalie saw them, her face fell.

 

“Oh, honey. You’re leaving?”

 

“Mom,” Lydia pursed her lips in a tight smile. “I told you this morning. My flight is at seven.”

 

“Why are you leaving so soon? I thought things were going well with your friends. And with Stiles.”

 

“There are … things I need to do in New York,” Lydia told her mother thoughtfully. She’d decided not to tell Natalie about her … encounter with Matthew.

 

Natalie was under a lot of stress with Eric already, and Lydia didn’t want to worry her more. Although, Lydia felt like Natalie’s obliviousness to the situation might be over soon. She thought that Noah might be notifying Natalie that, because of Lydia, he no longer had a living room window.

 

Instead, Lydia had briefly told Natalie that morning that she needed to get back to work as soon as possible and “take care of a few things in the city.” She hated lying to her mom, but it was for her benefit. Natalie had enough to deal with.

 

“Can’t you stay a little bit longer?” Natalie asked. “I was going to cook a pot roast tonight.”

 

Lydia smiled. “I already bought my ticket.”

 

“Well,” Natalie looked doubtfully back at the closed door to the room Eric slept in. “I could probably take an hour or so to drive you to the airport. Eric will be fine.”

 

“Actually, Stiles is giving me a ride,” Lydia told her. “We’re all having coffee before I go.”

 

She couldn’t help but smile at her words. _We’re all having coffee before I go_ was a sentence she never thought she’d say about the pack, but there she was, her phone buzzing in her hand from all the messages she kept receiving on their new group chat, created just that morning. They would all be there; all making an effort to say goodbye before Lydia left for New York.

 

Allison wouldn’t be there, of course, but Lydia suspected maybe she’d be looking down on them, beaming with happiness that Lydia had found her way back into the pack again.

 

Even the thought of going to the cafe Malia worked in and sitting with Malia while she was on her break didn’t fill Lydia with dread. Stiles was in love with her, but Lydia was going back to New York — she wasn’t in the position to be having any kind of say about Stiles’s love life.

 

So, she’d decided to just leave it. She could tell that Stiles felt conflicted about the whole thing anyway — he’d seemed so unsure, so confused, when she’d brought up Malia just before all hell broke loose at the Stilinskis’ house the night before. She hadn’t the heart to press him any more about it, or tell him about the guy she knew Malia was seeing.

 

She knew that was totally chickening out and setting him up for heartbreak, but the thought of actually _telling_ Stiles that Malia was dating someone else filled her with all kinds of emotions she couldn’t explain.

 

She just had to accept that she was going back to New York and she would kind of distant from them for a while. Physically, at least. She _hoped_ things could stay like they were now. She enjoyed being part of that group message and knowing her friends were texting her. It was different to the lonely life she’d led in New York, especially with everything she’d been going through concerning Matthew.

 

Now, though, Natalie smiled at her daughter.

 

“I’m so pleased for you, Lydia,” she said, meaning it.

 

Natalie Martin couldn’t help but feel like this was all ridiculous. She could tell that her daughter had feelings for Stiles Stilinski, and she could tell that Stiles had been crushing on her daughter since _forever._  It was almost painful watching the two of them dance around their feelings for each other, oblivious of the other and that they felt the exact same.

 

But it wasn’t her position to fix them up. They were adults now, and Natalie supposed that they knew what was for the best. Besides, what good was it, telling Lydia  _now_? It would only cause her confusion.

 

“So,” Lydia said. “I’m going to head off. It’s been great being home.”

 

“I’ve barely seen you!” Natalie answered, pulling her daughter in for a long hug.

 

Lydia smoothed down her mom’s hair before she pulled away, kissing her lightly on the cheek. She heard a horn outside the house and picked up her bag and purse.

 

“That’ll be Stiles,” she said. “I should go.”

 

“You text me when you get there, okay?” Natalie said, reaching out and touching Lydia’s cheek. “I love you, sweetheart.”

 

“I love you too, Mom.”

 

Lydia pulled away from Natalie just as Stiles knocked on the door, ready to collect her. She opened it and he grinned at her, immediately reaching for her bag and slinging it over his shoulder.

 

“Ready to go?” he asked. “The others are already there.”

 

Lydia nodded, glancing back at her mom. Natalie smiled and blew a kiss to Lydia, as she left and followed Stiles over to the car.

 

____________________________________________

 

Stiles loaded Lydia’s bags into the trunk of the car and jumped into the driver’s seat beside her, clicking his seat belt into place.

 

“Okay,” he announced, “so, if we head to the cafe for a couple of hours, then we’ll leave for the airport at around five.”

 

Lydia nodded. “Perfect.”

 

He nodded back.

 

In his head, the same words rotated round and round on repeat: _Don’t go. Please stay. Don’t go. Please stay. Don’t go. Please stay._

 

But he couldn’t say anything. They drove to the cafe where Malia worked, parked up, and headed inside. The others were already there and Stiles bought Lydia a coffee, watching as their friends fussed over her. He watched as her smile grew and grew, and he was glad he could have been part in welcoming her back into the pack.

 

There’d always been a place for her, they’d just been waiting for her to come home.

 

Stiles was resigned during the coffee date with his friends. Scott, Kira and Malia were focused on Lydia, so he took the time to sit back and just observe. He saw how her face lit up when she laughed, how much relief he felt when she _did_ laugh.

 

He didn’t want her to go back.

 

Absolutely everything inside of him ached for her to stay.

 

Just before they were thinking of leaving, the door to the cafe opened and Malia jumped up. She introduced the guy who’d just walked in as Rafael, and Stiles watched, confused, as Lydia’s eyes widened and she seemed panicked. Stiles wondered what the hell was up with her.

 

Rafael sat down between Stiles and Malia, and Stiles figured he should make the effort to make conversation with him. He’d been quiet with the rest of the group, but didn’t want to seem rude to the newcomer.

 

But after they’d been there for forty minutes or so, Malia had to get back to work and Rafael followed her over to the bar. Stiles’s eyes aimlessly followed them as Rafael leaned across the bar to kiss Malia. Malia seemed genuinely happy with him and Stiles felt relief that she’d found someone she could be herself with.

 

While Stiles had been distracted watching the happy couple, Lydia slipped into the seat beside him.

 

“Hey,” she said quietly, “you okay?”

 

Stiles nodded. “I’m great.”

 

“Are you sure?”

 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked. He wondered if she was trying to figure out how he felt about her leaving. If she asked, he would tell her the truth.

 

But she nodded towards Rafael and Malia. “Those two.”

 

He followed her gaze, just to be sure, and when he turned back to her she’d pursed her lips together sympathetically. “Those two?”

 

“Well, I mean,” she said, “you and Malia …”

 

He could only stare at her with confusion.

 

Him and Malia?

 

What the hell was Lydia talking about?

 

____________________________________________

 

Okay, so she’d mentioned it.

 

Ironically, after just deciding _not_ to bring it up with him, she’d noticed the way that Stiles looked at Malia and her boyfriend, Rafael, and she couldn’t _not_ say something. The perfect opportunity had come up.

 

Gently, she reached for his hand.

 

Then he said, “Lydia, what the hell are you talking about?”

 

She pulled back a little, shocked at his response. He _had_ to be in denial. It was the only explanation. Scott and Kira, noticing Stiles’s surprised reaction, glanced their way.

 

She knew she couldn’t say anything in front of them.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied hastily. “Forget about it.”

 

She didn’t want to risk embarrassing Stiles in front of his friends; she wasn’t sure how much Kira and Scott knew about Stiles’s feelings for Malia. God, it was just so clear, the way he’d looked over at them at the bar.

 

Of course, she hadn’t actually been able to _see_ the look on his face because she was sitting on the other side of him, but she could clearly imagine what it had looked like.

 

But then he looked at her, his forehead creasing with confusion, his eyes searching hers. She knew that he was thinking hard, trying to figure out what was going through her head, and she tried to figure out was _he_ was thinking.

 

“Lydia,” he said, his voice low, “that’s not what you —”

 

“What’s going on with you two?” Kira asked, interrupting the moment and Stiles’s speech.

 

Lydia pulled away hastily, dropping Stiles’s hand when she realised she’d been holding it in hers the entire time.

 

“Just …” she explained, then trailed off.

 

“Just trying to figure out when we’re leaving for the airport,” Stiles answered easily, straightening up and tugging at the collar of his T-shirt.

 

Lydia felt hyper-aware of his every movement, trying to work out what had just transpired between them. _That’s not what you_ … What she _what_? What had he been going to tell her? Although she was enjoying spending time with Scott and Kira, she wished it could just be her and Stiles, alone, so they could talk properly.

 

“Probably soon,” Scott suggested. “In case you hit traffic.”

 

“Are you trying to get rid of us?” Stiles joked, but Lydia didn’t miss the nervous look Scott and Kira exchanged at Stiles’s joke. She narrowed her eyes at them suspiciously.

 

“Well, anyway,” Stiles, meanwhile, hadn’t noticed that look. “We probably should get going soon.”

 

Lydia nodded, but she was reluctant. She didn’t want to leave. She got to her feet and Scott did too, immediately putting his arm around her and squeezing her shoulder.

 

“Come home again soon,” he said to her.

 

“I will,” she promised.

 

After she hugged Scott, she turned to Kira, unsure of what to expect. They were certainly in a better place than they had been in before Lydia came home, before the reunion, but Lydia didn’t know how the other woman felt about her.

 

To her surprise, Kira threw her arms around Lydia. “Keep in touch, okay? And come visit soon!”

 

“I will,” Lydia said again, but she tried to show just how much she meant it. She wasn’t planning on letting the pack go. Not again.

 

She pulled away from Kira and turned to face Stiles, nodding. “Let’s go,” she told him. Unsure how to say goodbye to Malia, she just called her name from across the room and waved when she looked her way.

 

Maybe she’d never be best friends with Malia, but she also remembered how Malia had been willing to protect her from Matthew, and that meant something to her. Even if Stiles felt something for her, even if that hurt, she could put her own personal feelings aside to admit that Malia was a good person — if a little bit odd.

 

Stiles and Lydia left the cafe, and Stiles placed his hand on the small of her back like he used to. She felt a shiver up her spine at the familiar gesture and jumped into the passenger side of the Jeep when he opened the door for her.

 

He got in the other side, then started the engine.

 

“Thanks for doing —”

 

“Lydia,” he interrupted, frowning across the Jeep at her. She waited, wondering what was he was going to say. “I’m not in love with Malia. You know that, right?”

 

____________________________________________

 

From the look on her face, and the confused stare that followed in the ten seconds after, Stiles assumed that she hadn’t, in fact, known that.

 

He pulled away from the cafe, aware that they actually needed to get moving to reach the airport in time for Lydia’s flight, but his mind was spinning with everything that this … this … _giant misunderstanding_ meant for them.

 

Suddenly, so much made sense.

 

 _Everything_ made sense.

 

Stiles flashed back to when they’d returned to his house after their non-date just a few nights ago now, when Stiles had been about to tell Lydia how he felt about her — how he _still_ felt about her after all these years — and she’d left without warning.

 

He’d thought that she’d known exactly what he was talking about. He’d thought she’d guessed immediately that he was talking about her, but maybe she hadn’t known that.

 

What if she’d thought he’d been talking about Malia?

 

Several of her questions about his relationship with Malia appeared in his memory. The way she looked at him when Malia was around, like she was watching him for something. For his reaction? To see how he acted around her? To see if he was in love with her?

 

But _why_ was she so concerned about his relationship with Malia? Why did it matter so much to her?

 

As he agonised over the million possibilities — how could he even _begin_ to figure out Lydia Martin’s mind? — Lydia turned to him. It had been at least a few minutes since he’d told her, and she hadn’t yet said anything.

 

“ _What_?”

 

He cracked a smile. “I’m not in love with Malia.”

 

“But …” Lydia shook her head.

 

It looked like everything she thought she knew had just changed. Stiles kind of weirdly enjoyed stumping her so much. It wasn’t often he could confuse a genius.

 

“What made you think that I was?”

 

“Just …” She still looked utterly confused. “Well ... everything, pretty much.”

 

“Seriously?”

 

“You said that you were hung up on someone from a long time ago,” she reminded him, looking his way. She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you weren’t talking about Malia, who _were_ you talking about? Don’t tell me it’s Cora Hale.”

 

“No, no,” he answered, shaking his head.

 

He avoided looking at her, keeping his eyes firmly focused on the highway ahead. He thought he could tell her … he thought that he could just say it. But ... what could he say?

 

_It’s you. You’re the one I’ve been hung up on. I was in love with you then, and I think I’m in love with you now. But you’re going back to New York and I’m going back to D.C._

 

What was the point in changing everything they’d spent the last few days trying to rebuild? They could sit in a car together for an hour’s journey to the airport, they could talk, laugh, joke around. They couldn’t have done that a week ago.

 

They were _friends_ now. Stiles had wanted that for so, so long.

 

This way, he could continue talking to her, trying to make her laugh, cracking awful jokes in the hopes of getting her to smile. If he told her, what would happen next?

 

Either she’d think it was weird and outright reject him, or if there was the slightest chance she _could_ return the feelings, she was going to New York and she wasn’t coming back.

 

He could ruin their friendship.

 

He wasn’t going to let that happen. Not again.

 

“Actually,” he said finally, looking over at her. “It wasn’t really about anyone — I just … Honestly, I was just making excuses for my incredibly pathetic love life. There is no one else.”

 

Lydia frowned, but she nodded as well, like this made sense.

 

“Well,” she said, “now I feel stupid, I’ve spent this entire trip trying to figure out a way of getting you two back together. To make amends for high school.”

 

“I’ve told you, you don’t need to make amends,” he replied easily, but then her words hit him.

 

She’d spent the entire trip trying to get him and Malia _back together_. He was immensely thankful he hadn’t breathed a word about his feelings for her.

 

That could have been hugely embarrassing — it was clear to him now. She didn’t feel the same way.

 

____________________________________________

 

There was no reaction on Stiles’s face when Lydia told him — as casually and coolly as she could — that she’d spent her trip trying to fix him up with Malia.

 

He obviously didn’t mind that was what she’d been trying to do.

 

She slumped down in the passenger seat, feeling even more like a moron that she had before. She’d been trying to fix up two people who weren’t even _interested_ in each other, and she hadn’t wasted all of that time on them, she could have told Stiles how _she_ felt about him. They might have more time together if she had, but now she was leaving, and what, really, was the point?

 

Maybe it was best to just leave it.

 

At least they were friends now.

 

That was enough. That _had_ to be enough.

 

She looked across at him, watching as he shifted gears and settled into his seat. They were forty-five minutes from the airport.

 

Another forty-five minutes with Stiles, and then she would have to say goodbye.

 

She wished he would ask her to stay.

 

____________________________________________

 

Only thirty minutes until he had to drop her at the airport and say goodbye.

 

He’d turned up the volume on the radio and she’d propped her feet up on the dashboard, the way she used to back in high school. He’d even made her laugh a few times, despite the overall low mood in the Jeep.

 

He wished he could ask her to stay.

 

____________________________________________

 

They followed the signs directing them to LAX and the parking area, and Stiles cut the engine.

 

She glanced at him. “So,” she said. “I guess this —”

 

“You want me to come in with you?”

 

She stopped, smiling as relief flooded through her. “Yes. I would.”

 

____________________________________________

 

A million thoughts raced around his mind as he handed the bag he’d carried into the airport over to her. She accepted it, slinging it over her shoulder, before she looked up at him.

 

“Thanks for the ride,” she told him, “and for, well, everything.”

 

“Let me know how the restraining order goes,” he said to her. “If you need any help, you can always call me. I, uh, know some people. Keep me updated, okay?”

 

Lydia cracked a smile. “Thanks.”

 

“You should probably go,” he said. He could see her flight on the board overheard, far down the list but ready for check-in.

 

He didn’t know whether to hug her or not, but thankfully Lydia had never lacked the confidence to make the first move. She smiled at him and stepped over to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and pulling him closer to her.

 

His arms automatically moved around her waist, his cheek brushing against wisps of hair and the side of her head. He breathed in, savouring the feel of her in his arms, knowing just how long it had taken to get her there again.

 

Then, he had to let her go.

 

They stepped away from each other. “Listen, if you ever get bored of New York, D.C. is great.”

 

“Really?”

 

He nodded. “Yeah.”

 

“There’s a lot I need to do back in New York first,” she answered softly. “But maybe someday.” 

 

Just as it seemed she was going to say goodbye, he remembered something. He rooted around in the back pocket of his jeans. A card. He handed it over to her.

 

“Just in case,” he said.

 

She looked at it, then cupped it in her hand. “Thank you, Stiles. I’ll call you when I land.”

 

“Please, don’t — don’t let things go back to how they were before,” he said, his voice wavering a little bit. “This week has been great. _Really_ great — getting to know you again. Spending time with you. Even arguing with you.”

 

“You too,” she said. She clutched her bags, stepping back from him.

 

He knew it was time that she left.

 

“I have to go. They’re calling my flight to check-in,” she told him. “Bye, Stiles.”

 

“Bye, Lydia.”

 

He watched as she turned around.

 

He watched as Lydia walked away from him — not for the first time in his life — and he _still_ hadn’t said a damn word about how he felt about her.

 

____________________________________________

 

She walked away from Stiles, her heart pounding with every step.

 

She was getting on that flight — and she was almost certain she had done the right thing.

 

She hadn’t told him how she felt, but what good would it have done, telling him?

 

It wasn’t like it was mutual.


	15. Everything Under the Sun

**FIVE MONTHS LATER.**

 

Lydia felt weirdly jittery as she looked around the airport arrivals, searching for him.

 

He’d _promised_ that he would pick her up at the airport. She’d even confirmed it just a few hours earlier with him, right before her flight left. She’d had to switch her phone onto flight mode before she’d received a response, but it was unlike him not to check his messages.

 

She assumed he’d got it — but maybe it hadn’t sent properly? Maybe she was just going to be standing around in the Reagan airport, waiting for somebody who possibly would or wouldn’t show.

 

She hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, letting out a sigh as she began to walk over to the cab part of arrivals. Just as she fell into the line waiting to hail cabs, a commotion caught her attention.

 

She turned just in time to see a large sign — at _least_ A3 — bobbing along, a head above the crowds of people marching around the airport, heading her way. She focused on the writing on the board, the neat, block-printed writing, and the way it looked just a little bit like _her_ name.

 

Upon closer inspection, she realised that it _did_ say her name. The board continued bobbing along, closer and closer to her with every step, and the businesswoman standing behind her in the line let out a grumble that she hadn’t moved along.

 

Lydia shot the woman a disapproving look, before she stepped clear of the line and lifted her hand just in time to see …

 

_Scott._

 

He turned to face her at the exact same time, a smile breaking out across his handsome face, and although she was disappointed it wasn’t who she _thought_ she’d see, she still felt relief to see Scott again after all these months.

 

He rushed over to her. “I thought I smelled expensive perfume,” he said, wrinkling his nose as he reached out to hug her. Lydia let herself relax into his arms, breathing in the smell of him and the comfort of him.

 

“It’s good to see you, Scott,” she said, keeping her voice light. “So, where’s —”

 

“He’s coming,” Scott interrupted, shooting her something of a knowing smile. She looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen and had no idea what he was referencing. She wasn’t quite ready — even five months later — for everyone to think they knew what was going on.

 

Which was, Lydia reflected, absolutely nothing.

 

Over the past five months, she’d kept in touch with Stiles. Of _course_ she had. She’d updated him on a daily basis on the situation with Matthew, the restraining order, how Stiles’s contacts at NYPD had really helped her to fix the entire mess. She'd messaged him whenever she thought she saw Matthew lurking around a corner, and he even recommended the name of a therapist who dealt with cases of harassment.

 

Once the restraining order had been granted and Lydia started to feel better about it all, she wasn’t sure she would continue talking to Stiles everyday. Before, she’d been able to contact him about the case, about Matthew, about his job.

 

She didn’t know if this was all it was for them: a mission.

 

But then, the day after it had all been resolved, he text her with a dumb joke some guy he worked with had told him. Stiles said in the message that, when he’d heard it, he’d “thought of her.” From then on, she no longer thought about whether Stiles would continue to make an effort with their friendship, he just did.

 

No questions about it.

 

But, she reminded herself, that was _all_ it was. A friendship. In the five months since leaving Beacon Hills, he’d offered no indication that their relationship was anything more than a friendship.

 

“Oh,” she replied finally, smiling distractedly. “Great. Is he —”

 

“Lydia!”

 

Stiles’s voice caught her attention, like she was in tune to his voice. She turned, spotting him across the airport. He waved at her goofily, and she couldn’t resist allowing the smile to break out across her face.

 

He started walking towards her, and she started walking towards him, feeling her heart thudding inside her chest. Then, they reached reach other and he swept her up into a hug, squeezing her so tight she almost couldn’t breathe.

 

“Stiles,” she managed to say, and he relaxed a little.

 

“Hi,” he said, his voice quiet in her ear.

 

She pulled away and looked up at him.

 

The way his hair curled at his forehead just a little, the soft plaid shirt he wore over an even softer, faded grey T-shirt. His hands still brushed at hers, his fingers reaching for hers, and then he cleared his throat and stepped away from her.

 

“Hi,” she said, straightening herself. “Are you —?”

 

“ _Lydia_!”

 

From behind Stiles, she heard more voices shouting her name. Stiles glanced behind him, then ducked out of the way as Kira and Malia sprinted over to her. They crashed into her, throwing their arms around her, and she hugged them back, overwhelmed with the greeting from her friends — her _pack_ — but also exceptionally pleased.

 

After briefly catching up with the two young women standing in front of her, with Scott trailing over to them, she realised that she hadn’t felt so loved in a long time.

 

The never-ending stream of incoming messages on their group thread didn’t compare to the real deal at all.

 

“So,” she said finally, “should we go?”

 

“Yes!” Stiles cried, though he was still standing a little further away from her than she would have liked. He suddenly seemed uncomfortable, like their intimate greeting had startled him.

 

“We were just waiting with the car, but we couldn’t wait any longer,” Malia explained, reaching for Lydia’s bag and slinging it easily over her shoulder, like it weighed nothing. “We decided to come and find you, see what was taking you so damn long.”

 

“Just …” Lydia glanced at Stiles. “Saying hi.”

 

The five of them began walking to the airport’s exit. Lydia thought about the proximity of Stiles — of her _friend_ , Stiles — as he walked beside her, their arms bumping against each other every so often.

 

She tried to cast her mind onto anything else. Usually, this worked. She wasn’t sure how well it would work when she was physically near to him, but she tried it.

 

They left the airport, the sun beaming down on them. She stopped for a second to look around them.

 

Stiles stopped with her.

 

“Well,” Stiles said, “welcome to D.C., Lydia Martin. It’s about damn time.”

 

____________________________________________

 

 

Stiles had been waiting for the chance to see Lydia since she’d got on her flight five months earlier.

 

Since then, he had been wondering how he could casually invite her to D.C. so he could just see her again. Everyday that he didn’t see her, he felt himself going more and more crazy.

 

He could just be her friend — he didn’t care. As long as he got to talk to her, got to make her laugh, he didn’t care. The friendship _was_ enough for him. It was killing him, but it was enough for him if she didn’t want anything more.

 

So, when Stiles’s birthday rapidly started approaching, he put a plan into action. He invited everyone to spend the weekend with him in D.C. His birthday was in the middle of the week, but he needed an excuse to get everyone together.

 

Lydia was the first person to respond, with one word that simultaneously freaked him out _and_ sent his heart soaring: _Yes!!_ He’d stared at that reply for hours on end.

 

After a few weeks, he’d organised some plans. Both of his roommates were out of town for the weekend, so the brownstone he lived in was free for all of them. Scott, Kira and Malia flew in from California on the Friday night, Lydia was the last to arrive on Saturday afternoon.

 

Originally, he’d said that he would pick Lydia up. He’d drive to the airport by himself, the others could stay at the house and wait for them to get back. He tried to play it off as too much effort them _all_ to go, but he really wanted time alone with Lydia.

 

When they all jumped up the chance to come with Stiles and he couldn’t convince them otherwise, he reluctantly agreed that they could all pick Lydia up.

 

He was dying for some time alone with her.

 

But he also knew that his friends had every right to see Lydia too, and she wasn’t there _just_ for him. No matter how much he wished she was.

 

He’d been waiting five months to see her again. And he was racking his brains for anything to actually _say_ to her — or to get a word in at all. His friends seemed to be taking care of that for him, asking her question upon question, asking her what had happened with Matthew.

 

She seemed like a different person. She was more relaxed, laughing in the passenger seat, the open window blowing her hair around her face. She had to keep tucking it behind her ear, frustrated, but he thought it was the most captivating thing he’d ever seen. He had to keep reminding himself to look at the freaking road in front of him.

 

When they arrived at Stiles’s house, they all helped her with her belongings. She was left carrying nothing, and Stiles slotted the key into the keyhole and opened the door.

 

“I’ll give you the grand tour,” he offered, as they stood in the foyer/living room/kitchen. He gestured wildly around them. “This … is pretty much all of it. You want to put your stuff in the room?”

 

“It’s fine,” she said, shaking her head. “I’ll do it later.”

 

He stepped into the kitchen. “Coffee?”

 

She nodded, her eyes flashing with appreciation. “God, yes. I need it.”

 

“Rough flight?”

 

She shrugged. “Rough few months.”

 

He knew it had been difficult for her.

 

The others were on the couch, the TV already on. Lydia glanced over at them, before she leaned against the kitchen counter next to Stiles. He switched on the ancient coffeemaker his dad had allowed him to steal from the Stilinskis’ house, pleased she’d chosen to stay with him.

 

“What happened with work?”

 

“Things have changed,” she told him, shrugging.

 

____________________________________________

 

Things _had_ changed.

 

More than he knew.

 

But it wasn’t time to tell him that — not right now.

 

“You know,” she said, shrugging. “Things were immediately better. Matthew didn’t come hanging around my office anymore, demanding to see me. But Mickey still wasn’t pleased that I was back.”

 

“You should sue the asshole,” Stiles muttered darkly. “He deserves it.”

 

“I’m not going to _sue_ him, you idiot,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “But he _is_ an asshole.”

 

He nodded seriously. “No doubt about it.”

 

“So,” she replied brightly, glancing around the room. “This is D.C., huh? What are we going to do this weekend?”

 

The coffeemaker finally finished brewing and he grabbed a cup from the cabinet above his head, placing it on the counter.

 

“Just hang out,” he said. “Dinner tonight.”

 

“Sounds great,” she said, relieved. “Just what I need.”

 

“Really?” he asked. “I thought it might be kind of boring. Since you’re used to New York life.”

 

She looked at him, shaking her head. “Trust me. It’s perfect.”

 

“If we’re bored,” he continued, looking back at her, “maybe some, like, super-villain wendigos or … I don’t know, mermaids will show up and we’ll have to fight crime and save the city.”

 

“From mermaids?”

 

“Hey,” he said sincerely, “at this point in our lives, who are we to call bullshit on mermaids?”

 

“You may have a point,” she conceded with a smile, “but I still don’t think mermaids are likely.”

 

He handed her the cup of coffee, his fingers brushing against hers as he did so, and she tried to steady the thudding of her heart, knowing there were two werewolves who would be able to hear it if they tuned in.

 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” he replied, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “I can’t figure out how they would storm the city when they can’t … walk.”

 

“There goes the only flaw in _that_ theory,” Lydia replied, but she couldn’t hide her smile.

 

He smiled back at her. “So —”

 

“So —” she began at the same time as him.

 

They both stopped, smiling. She realised that he was nervous too, though she didn’t know _why._ She had some things to tell him — she hadn’t been _planning_ on telling him right there and then, but maybe it was as good a time as any.

 

“You go first,” he insisted.

 

“So,” she started again, taking a deep breath, “you asked me about my job. And I wasn’t —”

 

“Hey Stiles, Lydia,” Kira called from across the room. “Come over here. We’re talking about our plans for the weekend.”

 

“Does it involve mermaids?” Stiles joked. Lydia sighed in response.

 

“What?” The other three looked suitably confused. “No …”

 

“Right,” Stiles answered, looking at Lydia. “Was it … important?”

 

She shook her head. “It can wait.”

 

She’d already waited five months; what was another few hours?

 

____________________________________________

 

They toasted to Stiles’s birthday and clinked glasses. Stiles smiled at his friends, his eyes resting on Lydia — sitting across from him — for a few seconds.

 

She nodded at him, pursing her lips together in a slightly seductive smile.

 

They’d all had too much to drink, even though it obviously didn’t affect Scott and Malia. They’d toasted five times — to Stiles’s birthday; to being reunited; to Lydia coming to D.C.; to the restaurant serving fajitas; to Stiles’s birthday (again) — and Stiles didn’t think he’d had that much alcohol in a _long_ time.

 

They were the last group in the restaurant by the time they paid the check and started to leave. Kira linked arms with Malia and Scott, while Stiles and Lydia walked — a little drunkenly — behind them.

 

“Listen,” Stiles said, wishing he could take her hand. It was a romantic setting: strolling along the streets of D.C. But he couldn’t take her hand. It was all just so … _impossible._

 

Lydia looked at him expectantly.

 

“Thanks for coming,” he said to her. “I know it couldn’t have been easy for you, getting the time off work and everything. It means a lot to me that you’re here.”

 

Lydia smiled. Stiles wondered what she was so happy about.

 

Then, she said, “Stiles, I quit my job.”

 

“ _What_?”

 

She nodded, grinning. “Yeah!”

 

“When?”

 

“Three weeks ago,” she confessed. She looked nervous to tell him. “I wanted to tell you in person.”

 

“Oh,” he said, nodding. “Right. Well, that’s — that’s amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

 

“Thanks,” she said. “And, actually, it’s what I was planning on telling you earlier …”

 

“Lydia! You said it wasn’t important!”

 

“I’ve been waiting weeks,” she said, shrugging. “I could wait a couple of hours longer.”

 

“So,” Stiles wanted to stop walking so he could focus on the conversation completely, but he didn’t want to freak her out in any way. “What does this mean for your … for where you'll live? Will you look for another job in New York?”

 

“Actually, I already got a new job,” she told him.

 

Stiles looked at her. “Oh, you … you did?”

 

____________________________________________

 

 

Lydia opened her mouth to tell him just as they reached the house.

 

They’d arrived much sooner than she thought, and their friends were waiting at the steps for Stiles to let them all in.

 

It didn’t seem right to tell him right then. She fell silent, smiling at her friends quickly, trying not to let her frustration show.

 

The five of them filed inside the house. She waited for Stiles to be alone again, but everyone sat down on the couch and turned on the TV, including Stiles.

 

The five of them sat there for a couple of hours, chatting between them and watching as the images moved on the screen. Someone put on an old movie, which Lydia had seen a thousand times.

 

Lydia sat in the armchair, looking at her friends across from her. Kira and Scott were squeezed in next to each on the couch, while Malia had chosen to sit cross-legged on the floor. She’d dragged a blanket over her legs, her head leaning back against the couch.

 

Stiles sat on the other end of the couch, his legs splayed wide, leaning against his hand. He noticed her looking over at him and she shot him a quick smile, before she moved her attention onto something else.

 

She hoped nobody had caught her staring at him, or that neither of the werewolves were listening to the way that her heart was beating just a little bit faster than usual.

 

It was getting late. The TV blinked sleepily at them, Lydia could see her friends dropping off to sleep as the conversation died down. She was curled into the armchair, her eyes closing, when she realised that Stiles was still awake.

 

She opened her eyes to see him walking over to the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and stretching his arms above his head. He switched on the coffeemaker. That was when she unfurled her legs, wrapped the blanket from the chair around her, and followed him into the kitchen.

 

He seemed surprised to see her awake.

 

“Hey,” he said. He sounded tired, his voice low in the near-darkness of the house, quiet so as not to wake their friends.

 

“Hey,” she answered, her voice just as soft as his. “You’re making coffee? At _two_ _a.m_.?”

 

He laughed. “I guess so. You want some?”

 

“Have you got any hot cocoa?”

 

Stiles paused for a moment to root around in some of the cabinets. He produced a tin of hot cocoa, grabbing a cup from the cabinet and piling a few spoonfuls in.

 

“So,” he began. “This job.”

 

“Right,” she answered.

 

“Can you just tell me — where … where is it?” he asked her, sighing. He sounded confused — maybe even upset. “Is it New York? California?”

 

“No,” she answered.

 

“Europe?” he guessed, rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. “Don’t tell me you’re running after Jackson Whittemore.”

 

“Not a chance,” she replied with a smile.

 

“Where is it?” he asked. “Where are you going next, Lydia Martin?”

 

“It’s about four blocks from here,” she told him, smiling.

 

“From … from _here_?” His forehead creased with confusion. “From my house?”

 

“You told me that D.C. is great,” she reminded him. “In the airport, before I left. I thought that I could try it out for myself.”

 

“Yeah,” Stiles said, shaking his head, “there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t regret that day at the airport. Of all things I could have said — I _should_ have said — and I just told you that D.C. is … great. Honestly.”

 

She leaned up against the counter, frowning at him. “What … what did you want to say to me that day?”

 

Could it be — could it be _possible_? — that things were different than Lydia had thought? She saw the look in his eyes. She saw how he looked at her.

 

And suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, it hit her.

 

And it all seemed to make sense.

 

____________________________________________

 

Stiles knew that _this_ was his opportunity.

 

He’d messed it up last time, and spent the following five months regretting every second of it, but he wouldn’t mess up this time.

 

After all, there were a hundred reasons why he _shouldn’t_ tell Lydia — their friendship was, of course, at the forefront his mind, and always would be — but there was one reason why he _should_ tell her.

 

He loved her.

 

And didn’t he deserve to let her know and … just … see what happened? Didn’t he deserve that chance at love? He’d held onto these feelings for Lydia for _so_ long, and so many times he’d pushed them away because he’d convinced himself it wasn’t the right time, or she couldn’t possibly feel the same way, but would there _ever_ be a good time?

 

Probably not.

 

Lydia was standing in front of him in his kitchen, looking at him, waiting for his answer. She’d just told him that she’d gotten a job in D.C. because _he’d_ suggested she’d like it there. Didn’t that mean something?

 

Stiles didn’t want to allow himself to hope so, but he also knew that he couldn’t let her go again. Not without even trying.

 

“I …” He poured her cocoa and his coffee, sliding the mug across the counter to her. “Uh — there’s a whole lot I should have said. It probably doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that you’re staying, and we get to see more of each other, right?”

 

She nodded. “Yeah. Exactly.”

 

“And that maybe … all those things left unsaid,” Stiles continued, urging himself to continue, “can be said at some point.”

 

Lydia frowned at him, narrowing her eyes out of confusion. “Stiles, what are you saying?”

 

“Honestly, I don’t even know,” he answered, sighing. “I just … There’s so much I want to tell you. There’s so much I wanted to tell you when we were at the airport, but I just couldn’t get it out because you were leaving, and I didn’t know if you were coming back. And we’d only just become friends again and I didn’t want to ruin that. I couldn’t jeopardise that then, and don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to jeopardise it _now_ , either. But I’m tired of pretending.”

 

She didn’t say anything.

 

She just waited.

 

Finally, he just shrugged, letting his shoulders relax. “Lydia, I’ve been pretending for the last ten years like I’m not … like I’m not …”

 

Lydia sighed.

 

Then, to his surprise, she began laughing gently.

 

____________________________________________

 

He was so _nervous._ It was so endearing.

 

She could see the way his hands were shaking, and the way he couldn’t quite articulate anything or even form sentences. She stepped out from behind the counter and joined him on his side, reaching for his hands.

 

She had to put him out of his misery.

 

She’d been so scared — no, that was an understatement; she’d been terrified — before because she hadn’t known how Stiles would react to everything she wanted to say to him. But unless she’d misread the entire situation, she was pretty sure she knew what Stiles was going to say.

 

But it had to be _her._

 

She was the one who had the messy relationship history. She was the one who’d pushed him away in high school, just when she’d needed him the most. She was the one who’d denied her feelings for him over and over. She was the one who’d misunderstood the entire situation with Malia, and pushed her feelings away _again._

 

She had to tell him first.

 

“Stiles,” she said, “I’m here for _you._ Can’t you see that?”

 

He looked horrified. “And that’s … funny?”

 

“You’re shaking, Stiles.”

 

“This is shit scary, Lydia!” he replied defensively. “I’m trying to confess how I —”

 

“So am I!” she cried, her voice louder than she’d intended.

 

They both glanced over to where their friends were sleeping, wincing, before Stiles grabbed onto her hand and curled his fingers around hers. He tugged her through the living room, past their friends, and into one of the rooms leading off it.

 

Once they were in his bedroom, Lydia felt the urge to snoop around and look at the room. But she also knew there was a serious conversation they needed to have, and now was not the time to wonder if Stiles read the same books as her or also owned the entire boxset of _Friends._

 

“Stiles,” she said, sinking onto the end of his bed. “When I came back to Beacon Hills, it was _you._ You were there from the very beginning, you wanted to help even though you were still angry and hurt with me. You were the first one to welcome me back into the pack, even though I didn’t deserve to be there. You were so different to other guys, to Jackson —”

 

“I should hope so,” Stiles muttered.

 

“ _And_ —” she continued, rolling her eyes — “to anyone else I’ve ever known. The reason why I want to stay in D.C. is because you’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I don’t need to keep running.”

 

“Lydia, I —”

 

“I don’t need to keep running,” she continued quickly, cutting him off because she just needed to get it all out there, “because you’re the first person — the _only_ person — who has ever made me feel like I’m safe and like you’d always protect me.”

 

“You hardly need protecting,” he replied, smiling, “but you know I would always try, anyway.”

 

“That’s what I mean, Stiles. Time and time again, you’ve put everything on the line for me,” she insisted. She had to make him _see._ She had to make him understand. “You always did. In sophomore year, junior year, senior year — even when you thought I didn’t know. I _did._ It was just … things were difficult in our senior year. With Allison gone, I craved the normality that didn’t come with being friends with you and Scott. All you guys wanted to do was fight the supernatural and solve ridiculous, impossible puzzles. All I wanted to do was get into college.”

 

Stiles shook his head. “Lydia, I …”

 

She smiled at him, taking his hand in hers. She curled her fingers over his, tracing the shape of his thumb. “Stiles, _despite_ that, you never gave up on me. That was why I … that was why I loved you back then, and that’s why I love you now.”

 

____________________________________________

 

Stiles stared back at her.

 

“What?” he asked, disbelieving.

 

She smiled at him. “I just couldn’t tell you up until now. The whole mess with Matthew, quitting my job, I thought you were in love with _Malia_ , for God’s sake. It never seemed right.”

 

“I’m not in love with Malia,” Stiles blurted out. “Just so we’re clear.”

 

Lydia laughed and Stiles felt his face lighting up. He loved making her laugh. He wanted to spend a lifetime trying to make her laugh.

 

Once he finished looking at her like she’d singlehandedly created the universe, put the stars in the sky and everything in-between, the weight of what she’d just told him hit him straight in the chest.

 

She _loved_ him. How was it possible that he’d never known this? That he’d never figured it out? He’d spent ten years of his life walking around without his knowledge. This insane, wonderful, _beautiful_ knowledge that would change his life from now until forever.

 

“I …” he began. “I need a minute.”

 

He looked down at their intertwined hands and traced circles in the space between her thumb and forefinger, barely believing that this was happening. If he was dreaming, he didn’t want anyone to pinch him.

 

He couldn’t believe that he could hold Lydia Martin’s hands … knowing she _loved_ him.

 

She loved him. Lydia Martin loved him.

 

He felt dizzy.

 

And now he had no qualms about telling her everything he’d been waiting to say for months, _years._

 

Despite the dizziness and general shock of the situation, Stiles forced himself to remain upright and tighten his grip on her hands. He looked into her eyes, saw that little purse of her lips that he was pretty sure meant she was thinking, and he explained. Everything.

 

“I have loved always, _always_ loved you,” he told her, “and even when I didn’t love you, I still did. Like when we were apart. Like when I was pissed that you weren’t speaking to us in our senior year. All those years we weren’t friends, we weren’t even in touch … I didn’t know it at the time, but I knew it the second that you walked back into my life.

 

“That’s why Malia and I broke up, and why Cora and I never ended up dating. Because it was you — it had always been you. It was you when you lent me a pencil in third grade; even when you ditched me at the formal to find Jackson; when you threw yourself on top of me at the motel in California to protect me. All the time, everyday, for as long as I can remember.”

 

A smile broke out across her face. It was hesitant, but it was there. “Really?”

 

“Why didn’t you just _tell_ me? Why didn’t I just tell you?” he asked, sighing. “All this time we’ve wasted …”

 

“You think I don’t know that? I’ve driven myself crazy knowing that I wasted that week I was in Beacon Hills trying to fix you up with Malia — I thought I’d lost any chance of us finding our way to each other. I thought I’d really messed up.”

 

“And in high school?”

 

“Stiles,” she said, “I never deserved you in high school. I wanted guys like Jackson, Aidan …”

 

“I was there,” Stiles said, “and I remember it all, trust me. Lydia, _they_ never deserved _you_.”

 

“I knew how much you cared about me,” she replied. “I knew that you knew me the most out of everyone. I knew if we spent too much time together, you’d figure out exactly how I was feeling. And I just couldn’t … be with you. I felt so guilty about Allison, about everything that had happened.”

 

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, his voice soothing. “This is it now, right? We’re … This is a thing. This is a thing?”

 

She nodded. “This is a thing.”

 

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “I love you.”

 

Lydia laughed loudly, pressing her forehead against his. She could see the time on his alarm clock, just out of the corner of her eye. 4:02 a.m. It was so late, but she had no interest in going to sleep.

 

“I love you too,” she replied.

 

“You know,” Stiles continued, pulling away from her. “Scott is going to be so happy.”

 

“You’re really bringing Scott up right now?”

 

“He’s been rooting for this to happen since the beginning of time,” Stiles said. “I’m tempted to wake him up and tell him right now, actually.”

 

Lydia laughed. “You’re really going to disturb his and Kira’s time together like that?”

 

Stiles leaned away from her, his face falling. “What?”

 

She shrugged. “What?”

 

“Scott and Kira?”

 

“Yeah,” Lydia answered slowly. “They’re … _totally_ sleeping together. Isn’t it obvious?”

 

“ _What_?”

 

“You didn’t notice?” she asked him, smiling.

 

“No! No, I didn’t _notice_! Is this a joke?” Stiles’s eyes were wide, like they might pop out of his head at any second. “Are you being serious?”

 

“It’s _obvious_!” Lydia told him. “I could tell as soon as I saw the way they looked at each other at the cafe Malia works in, you know, the day I left. They aren’t exactly trying to hide it. And you call yourself a detective.”

 

“I _knew_ he was keeping secrets from me,” Stiles muttered.

 

“Well,” Lydia relented, “I’m pretty sure it’s true.”

 

“We’ll launch an investigation in the morning,” Stiles suggested. He shrugged, a glint in his eye. “Or anytime, really, considering you’re staying.”

 

“We’re relaunching our detective team?” she teased. Their fingers looped together.

 

“Maybe not the supernatural aspect — that should be saved just for Beacon Hills, and for when mermaids figure out a way of storming the city — but we did make a good team, didn’t we? I never found a partner as good as you.”

 

“What’s your partner like now?” she asked him, genuinely interested.

 

So, Stiles told her. He told her about his partner at work, who had _definitely_ never made his heart race the way Lydia Martin had when she’d been his best partner, and he told her about the rest of his job. The ups and the downs, the ins and the outs. He told her about the day he’d moved into the brownstone in D.C., how he hadn’t known his roommates at all and had met them through Craigslist. He told her about his first day of college. He told her about how it had felt to leave Scott and his dad. He told her about his dad had cried when he’d dropped him off for college, and Stiles had waited until his dad drove away before he allowed himself to cry, too.

 

In turn, Lydia told him about her senior year. The year they’d missed out on. She told him about MIT, about her roommates. She told him about her first day in New York and about her job. She told him about her boss, Mickey, and how she’d marched into his office three weeks ago and quit. Just like that.

 

She told him about the job she’d interviewed for, and how they’d interviewed her via a video call a day after she’d sent in her application. She told him that, twenty-five minutes after the video call, they’d offered her the job. She’d accepted immediately. Thirty minutes later, she’d found an apartment a few blocks away from where Stiles lived — which had been coincidence, of course, or … maybe … the emotional tether, ensuring that they stayed close to each other this time — and had contacted the landlord to make a payment.

 

They talked and talked and talked, jumping from topic to topic like there wasn’t enough time to cover it all. They talked about everything. Everything under the sun.

 

They talked until there seemed like there was nothing left to say, at least not right then, and the only thing left for Stiles to do was to let his fingers graze Lydia’s cheek, then lower his lips onto hers and kiss her like he’d wanted to do again since that day in the locker room.

 

And Lydia — as she kissed Stiles back — found herself thinking. She found herself thinking about her future, _their_ future.

 

She didn’t know what would happen — she didn’t know whether they would live in Beacon Hills, New York, D.C., or anywhere else.

 

All she knew for sure, one hundred percent, was that she no longer needed to keep running. 

 

With Stiles, she was finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed the final chapter of 'I have loved you since we were eighteen' - of course they found their way back to each other in the end! Please give Kudos if you liked it, comment with your favourite line, comment with any thoughts you had (I love reading running commentary type comments!) and anything else!! Thanks for reading!


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